The Invasion of the Tearling

The next weekend Greg had Arnie Welch over to dinner, along with two of Arnie’s underlings. Greg always invited Arnie on the rare occasions when he was in town; they had been fraternity brothers at Yale. Greg said it was useful to be friends with a Security lieutenant, and even Lily saw the sense in that. But this time, when Arnie walked through the door, Lily didn’t see Greg’s parking tickets or a quick travel visa for vacations or even the Security helicopters that Arnie would sometimes loan as a favor when business was slow. Instead, she saw Maddy being hustled out the school doors, the last flash of her blonde pigtails, a picture so clear that Lily swayed momentarily on the threshold, and when Arnie tried to put an arm around her shoulders, she ducked away toward the kitchen.

For once Arnie didn’t drink during dinner, and he glared at his two flunkies when they showed signs of reaching for the whisky. Greg heckled him about it, but Arnie merely shrugged, saying, “I can’t afford a hangover tomorrow.”

Lily was just as happy to have Arnie stay sober. He got pretty handsy when he drank; once he’d actually tried to worm his hand between her legs at the table. Lily could never tell whether Greg noticed these advances; as possessive as he had become, he seemed to have achieved a level of deliberate blindness when someone was in a position to be useful to him. But Lily had seated Arnie on the far side of the table, just in case.

Although her nose was almost back to normal, Lily still had noticeable bruising under her right eye, but she was not surprised when Arnie didn’t ask about it. She found that she could barely eat. Her healing fingers, both of them still encased in temporary splints, made it hard to manipulate the knife and fork, but that wasn’t really the problem. She had spent most of her married life telling lies, but ever since Dorian toppled over the back wall, there had been a shift in the foundation, and it was becoming harder to dissemble, harder to force each individual lie out. She was afraid of her husband, but the fear was less important now. She sensed a wider world out there, a world not run by people like Greg, and sometimes, even though she understood nothing, she knew exactly what Dorian meant: it was so close she could almost touch it.

Pigs, she thought, watching Greg and the military men snort and chuckle and snuffle their food. Pigs, all of you. You have no idea about the better world. Lily didn’t understand the better world either, true, but she thought she was beginning to at least see the outline now. No poverty and no greed, Tear had said. Kindness is everything. People like Greg would be entirely irrelevant. Yesterday he had told her that he’d made contact with an in vitro doctor. They would go on Monday. Lily couldn’t imagine what her life would look like on Tuesday.

She had her doubts that Arnie could really stay sober throughout dinner; even among Greg’s normal set of dinner invitees, Arnie was a consummate boozehound. The whisky bottle sat on the table right in front of him—Greg’s idea of a good joke—during the entire meal, but somehow Arnie ignored the bottle, sticking strictly to water. He was nervous and jumpy, constantly checking his watch. His two underlings weren’t much better, though they still found time to nudge each other and grin at Lily during the meal. She was used to this kind of thing, and ignored their comments, even when she heard herself referred to as a nice piece of snatch.

“What’s got you so twitchy?” Greg finally asked Arnie. “Are you on drugs?”

Arnie shook his head. “Stone sober. I have a long day tomorrow, that’s all.”

“Doing what?”

“It’s classified.”

“I’m cleared.”

Arnie looked uncertainly across the table at Lily. “She’s not cleared.”

“Oh, fuck her, she’s not going to tell anyone.” Greg turned to Lily with narrowed eyes. “Are you?”

She shook her head automatically, keeping her eyes on her plate.

“So come on, man, give,” Greg begged, and Lily suddenly saw something she had never seen before: Greg was jealous of the military men across the table. Greg worked for several defense contractors, yes, but his was a desk job. Arnie was trained to fire weapons, to interrogate, to kill people, and Greg thought that made Arnie a better man. “Tell us what you’ve been up to.”

Still Arnie hesitated, and Lily felt a tiny alarm go off inside. Clearance or not, Arnie was always telling Greg things he shouldn’t, and it usually didn’t take much alcohol to make it happen. She kept her eyes on her plate, trying to make herself as invisible as possible, waiting for him to speak. But after a few moments, Arnie merely shook his head again. “Sorry, man, no. It’s too big, and your wife’s not cleared.”

“Fine, come on upstairs. We’ll talk in my study.”

“You two go down and wait in the car,” Arnie told his two flunkies, then wiped his mouth and threw his napkin on the table. “Thanks, Lily. That was great.”