Xvi (18 page)

We were almost to the apartment when my stomach dropped. How was our low-tier retirement community apartment going to look to someone who lived in a mansion? “Uh, Wei, our place is, well ... we just moved and ... the government benefits haven’t—”

Wei laughed. “You think I care about all that tier crap?”

I smiled at her. “Some people do.” My heart swelled and I instantly relaxed. I was so used to Sandy—everything tierwise mattered to her. It could be nice to hang out with someone who wasn’t so caught up with tiers and sixteen, to talk with a friend who was more interested in things like music and art. I hoped Wei would want to be friends.

When we walked in, Pops was dozing in his favorite chair. He stirred when I shut the door.

“Hi, Little Bit, Deedles.” His voice was heavy with sleep. He blinked. “Who’s that with you?”

“Pops, this is Wei Jenkins. We’re in school together.”

“Hello, Miss Wei Jenkins.” He straightened up, running a hand through his shock of wiry hair.

I could almost see him collecting his thoughts, like picking out favorite AV chips. Thank goodness he had his leg on.

“Jenkins, hmm. That name sounds familiar.” He called into the other room, “Edie-hon, get out here, I need your memory—and we’ve got company.” He smiled at Wei. “I apologize for not getting up. Old bones, you know. Pretty little thing, aren’t you?”

She didn’t blush, like I most certainly would’ve. “Thank you.”

Gran walked into the room, wiping her hands on a towel tucked into her belt. “I’m making chocolate chip cookies.” She saw Wei. “Hello.”

“This is Wei Jenkins, Gran. She’s a friend from school.”

“Jonathan Jenkins’s daughter,” Gran said.

“I am,” Wei said.

Gran turned to me. “It was Jonathan Jenkins in that picture we were looking at.”

“Wei and I figured that out yesterday. I forgot to tell you.” I didn’t tell her why I’d forgotten—the fight with Sal.

“Wei, it’s nice to meet you. Would you like to stay for dinner?” Gran asked.

“I was hoping Nina could come to dinner at my house tonight,” Wei said. “Is that all right?”

“Of course. But don’t forget it’s a school night.”

“Mom won’t let us. Nina will be home before nine.”

“Take a coat, dear.” Gran fussed over me. “It’s getting cold. And take the transit. I don’t want you walking alone at night.”

“Yes, Gran.” I went for my coat. She didn’t have to worry; I could take care of myself. Hadn’t I been doing that for weeks now?

Minutes later Wei and I were outside waiting for the number 33. As it pulled up, I noticed a green trannie behind it. I craned my neck, trying to make out if it was Ed’s. I couldn’t get a clear view, to be sure. For a second, I wondered if I should not go to Wei’s to watch out for Dee. But I couldn’t not go—I needed to meet Mr. Jenkins. Just then, the green trannie sped up and passed the transit. I had to figure out some way to keep Ed from seeing Dee. At least for the time being, I didn’t have to worry about tonight.

“I’m a little nervous,” I confessed, which was a huge understatement. My brain was wagging back and forth between jitters and paralyzing panic. Somehow I’d managed to keep my body under control as we walked from the transit stop to Wei’s house.

“Don’t be. My parents are really easy to talk to.”

“Mine, too.” For a split second I thought, I can’t wait to tell Ginnie about this when I get home tonight. Then I remembered. I’d never get to tell her anything again. Just when I’d think I had it all under control, a thought about Ginnie would spring up and I’d forget she was dead. I hoped someday I could think about her without wanting to cry. I struggled to get back into the moment, forcing myself to think about getting closer to finding my father. That was the most important thing I needed to do. I was doing it for Ginnie.

“You okay?”

I blinked furiously, trying to stop the tears. “Yeah.”

With every step I willed myself back to that place where missing Ginnie was almost bearable. By the time we got to Wei’s building, I’d succeeded.

There was a regular security panel on the front, but Wei didn’t use it. She pressed a series of numbers into a keypad hidden behind the brass house numbers. A light beam shone into her eye and a moment later the door clicked open.

“What’s that?”

“Retinal scan. Dad installed it. He loves gadgets.”

The foyer of the brownstone was like a museum. The pink marble steps leading upstairs had deep depressions worn from centuries of people’s feet climbing up and down. The brass rail was burnished to a shine by countless hands that had gripped it. A huge crystal chandelier illuminated the whole area, throwing shadows and shimmers everywhere.

“Wow!” My breath caught in my throat. “This is beautiful. I love it!”

“Me, too. Some people don’t because it’s so old. My sister, Angie, hates it. She couldn’t wait to move out to some neo-mod in Grand Isle. Her husband’s a tier-seven. She can be a real snob sometimes.” She shook her head. “They could’ve lived here, on the first floor, but she didn’t want to. So Dad put his office down here.” She pointed to the right. “And that’s a guest apartment.” She pointed left. “You wanna see?”

“Sure.”

Wei tried her father’s office. “Locked.” She shrugged. “We’ll try the apartment.” She turned the knob, and we walked in.

“Everything in here’s kind of old,” Wei said. “It’s mostly furnished with things we don’t use anymore.”

Old things? Everything I saw was ten times nicer than anything I’d ever had, or ever hoped to have. Even when we were tier five, our furniture wasn’t this nice. I supposed high-tiers, like Wei, didn’t think about things like that. I reddened as I imagined what she must have thought of where I lived now.

“Our whole house is safe, you know.” Wei smiled. “You can say anything here and no surveillance will pick it up.”

As she gestured, I noticed her tattoo. I wondered if she’d had sex.”Can I ask you something?”

“Anything. I’m an unlocked text chip.” She grinned at me. “Dad says people used to say, ‘I’m an open book.’ But hardly anyone reads books anymore, since they’re all on chips or downloads.”

“Ginnie did,” I said. “Read real books, I mean. After she died, B.O.S.S. came to our house and confiscated most of them.”

“No kidding? That’s weird. I wonder if they go looking at everyone’s stuff after they die.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. Her XVI caught my eye again and I decided I’d better ask while I had the nerve. “Have you ever had, you know ... sex?”

“No way.” She put her hands on her hips. “And I won’t until I’m ready. No guy better try to force himself on me, or he’ll be sorry. I’m not a Cliste Galad student for nothing.”

“Cliste what?” Her flashing eyes were evidence enough for me that any guy would’ve been a fool to mess with her.

“Cliste Galad. It’s a kind of martial arts I’m learning. It’s a combination of Eastern mysticism and Celtic warrior fighting.”

“Is it hard to learn?”

“Not for me,” she said. “But I guess it could be. I think it will come in real handy for keeping guys in their place.” She laughed. “I bet you don’t want to have sex yet either, do you?”

I shook my head. “I’ve seen—” I started to say something about Ed’s sex vids, but stopped myself. I wasn’t sure how much I should or shouldn’t say to Wei. I didn’t want to ruin what could be a good friendship by telling her how typical my low-tier life had been.

“Mom has drilled into my head that women are not sex objects, and that sixteen-year-old girls are not walking sex-bots, like Media portrays them. And those vids in Health class? If some guy tried that stuff with me, I’d send him on a one-way trip to the moon. We’re supposed to like guys talking us into having sex? I don’t think so. Not this girl.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. The how-to sex vids that we watched in school were pretty ridiculous.

“We should get upstairs,” Wei said, walking toward the apartment door. “They’re probably waiting for us.” She shut the door carefully, and we climbed the stairs.

I had the strangest sensation as my hand glided up the brass banister. “Do you ever feel like you are somehow touching all those people from the past who used to live here?”

“Uh-huh. It’s like this continual connection with history. Mom says that people carry the wisdom of the ages inside them. But mostly no one wants to look that closely at themselves. Mom practices ancient healing methods and uses herbs and charms and all kinds of things that the world has forgotten. She’s got all kinds of strange stuff up on the third floor. She’d show you sometime, if you wanted to see.”

We stopped in front of a pair of dark wooden doors that had huge ornate brass doorknobs. A U-shaped object hung in the middle of one.

“What’s that?” I pointed to it.

“A door knocker.” She demonstrated its purpose by lifting and then dropping it. There was a sharp retort that echoed down the hallway. “Before viewers and buzzers, there were these. I live in an antique. See that?” She pointed to a little brass circle with a thick glass lens in the middle, right above the knocker. “It’s a peephole, a primitive viewer. You look through it and can see whoever’s on the other side.”

I leaned in close to try it out. Just then the door opened, jerking me off balance, and I fell inside. A man caught me on the other side.

“This must be Nina.” He didn’t let go until he was sure I had my feet under me.

“Hi, Dad. Yep, she’d never seen a peephole before.”

“Didn’t bother to tell her they work much better from the other side, did you?”

She grinned at me. “Sorry.”

“No biggie.” I blushed.

Wei’s father surveyed my face. “You look like your father ... but those dimples. They’re your mother’s. She used to blush all the time, too.” He winked at me.

That was news to me. Ginnie’d always been so self-assured, nothing ever seemed to rattle her. Maybe there was hope for me yet.

“Jade,” he called out, “Nina’s here.”

Wei’s mother was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. Her straight dark hair swung across her cheeks as she put her arms around me and hugged me tight the way mothers do. It felt so good, my heart ached. I could almost imagine she was Ginnie.

After a moment, she held me at arm’s length and, like her husband, studied my face. “You are your father’s daughter.” She ran a perfectly manicured finger by the corners of my mouth. “And I see Ginnie here.” Her eyes clouded. “Your mother was the best friend I ever had.”

“Really?” I choked back tears. “I didn’t know that. She never—” I stopped, thinking it would be rude to say Ginnie’d never mentioned her.

“Of course you wouldn’t have known. We hadn’t seen each other since ... well, the last time we were together, you were this big.” She held her hands about a foot or so apart.

“I was a baby?”

“Yes. It was a wonderful time and also very sad, after your father ...” She paused, and looked at Wei’s dad, who gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head. “But tonight we’re going to talk about good times. Shall we have dinner now? You girls must be starving.”

I was so afraid of making some kind of stupid low-tier mistake during dinner that I kept quiet and mostly picked at my food. Later, in the living room, I perched on the edge of the sofa, determined not to miss a single word about my father and Ginnie.

“We grew up together, about five blocks from here,” Mr. Jenkins said.

“Don’t forget Sal’s dad,” Wei said.

“Yes, Brock lived on that block, too. In fifth grade we called ourselves the Outlanders, after the Resistance in
Mars Rising.
Do you know that story?”

“Yes,” I said. “The B.O.S.S. agents confiscated our copy after Ginnie’s death.”

“What it’s all come to.” Mr. Jenkins sighed and shook his head. “I remember Brock’s mother sewed us Outlander costumes to wear to school on Imagination Day.”

“I have a picture of my dad in a cape with a big E on his chest. What was he like?” I wanted details. I knew how he looked; I wanted to know what kind of person my father was.

Mr. Jenkins laughed. “We were crazy kids, but ...” His eyes got serious. “That was only the beginning.”

“All the girls in school were crazy about Alan,” Mrs. Jenkins said. “He was so handsome. Friends with everyone, but he only loved Ginnie.”

I felt a stabbing sadness in my heart. My mother had a man who loved her like that and then ... then she chose to be with Ed. If my father was in fact still alive, why hadn’t she stayed with him? More than ever, I had to know what happened, why he’d left.

“Being a charmer was not his most important quality.” Mr. Jenkins laughed. “He was clever, intelligent, and definitely had a way with words. As captain of the debate team, he could persuade nearly anyone to see his side of an argument. In tenth grade the Media recruited him to be prime anchor for their Chicago network. That was a plum tier-ten job. They awarded him a full-ride scholarship to college and drew up the contracts to be ready when he graduated.”