Frida tried to remember what Toni might have told her, but she came up empty. Everyone on the Land had to know how August procured the supplies, but only a few would understand the process intimately. Cal might have learned about Pines days ago and kept it all from Frida, just like he’d hoarded Bo’s story about the Spikes. There was no telling what he might keep from his little wife.
Frida had always been fascinated by the Communities, the secret life behind their walls, their riches and beauty all conjecture. In the first couple of years after they opened, Frida had conjectured a lot. L.A. was a festering wound, but just a few miles away men and women slept peacefully on canopied beds in large rooms in large houses. At eighteen, Frida thought canopy beds were so glamorous. A few years later, when Toni started telling her about the Communities she’d researched, Frida had eaten up every detail: there were bikes everywhere, and helmets were required; residents had to pass a rigorous physical exam to gain entry; each child was sent a toy on their birthday. In a Community, someone flipped a switch, and a light turned on.
“You really don’t want to know what goes on in Pines?” Frida asked.
“No, I don’t.” Anika raised her eyebrow. “Curiosity leads to trouble. You’ll learn one of these days. What made you curious about the Land? Why did you come here?”
Frida had already told Anika about how she’d met Sandy and about her first visit to the Millers’ house. Anika knew that Frida and Cal had been living there when they decided to come to the Land.
“Was it August?” Anika said. “He can be charming.”
Frida laughed. “We didn’t know he was here. We knew nothing about you guys.” She described what Bo had told Cal: his story of him and Sandy visiting the Spikes, how they had turned back in fear.
Anika seemed confused. “So Bo acted like he didn’t know us? He lied?”
“He didn’t tell me, he told Cal. And Cal kept it from me for months and months.”
“Men are asses,” Anika said. “Stubborn.”
Frida laughed again and smoothed the side of the last cake with a butter knife. They’d made five so that everyone on the Land could have a piece.
“He claimed he was just trying to protect me.” As she spoke, an anger bit into her so deep she couldn’t say anything else. Cal would withhold the world from her in the name of safety.
“Oh, I don’t doubt it,” Anika replied. “But that’s always their reason. It was probably Bo’s, too, because he was never a liar when I knew him.”
Something in Anika’s voice made Frida nervous. “What happened back then?” she asked. It was her turn for information, but she knew this was too broad a question, the parameters for answering recklessly wide.
Frida waited. 10-9-8-7-6-
“Jane had friends here,” Anika said.
“She did?”
Jane had friends here. Jane had friends here. As she put the cakes in the oven, the words knocked deliriously around her brain like the lyrics to a pop song. Anika meant other kids, didn’t she? She had to. Or was it simply code for having allies? Did someone not want the Millers, and Jane in particular, to leave? Anika could have merely been talking about herself. She had obviously adored that little girl.
Frida’s stomach seized. It was as if she’d been struck with motion sickness, like she’d been reading in a car—she still remembered that feeling. She didn’t take another step, telling herself that if she remained perfectly still, she wouldn’t be sick.
She put her hand over her mouth as if to stop whatever might happen next. She must have looked green because Anika was right at her back. Frida vomited as she stepped into the small hallway off the kitchen.
“Sorry” was all she could think to say.
As soon as Frida had wiped her mouth with the back of her arm, Anika put her hand on Frida’s forehead, then the back of her neck, asking if she felt hot, or cold, or a combination of both.
“I’m fine,” she said. “It must have been the stuffy air in here.”
If Anika was disgusted by what had just happened, she didn’t show it. Frida was grateful.
Anika asked, “Does this happen a lot?”
Micah wanted her to keep her pregnancy a secret, but maybe the baby didn’t want to cooperate. Thank goodness she wasn’t showing yet.
Frida realized that Anika was judging her body: its strength, its health, its tendency to collapse into illness. It was how August used to treat her and Cal whenever he came to trade.
“Sometimes I get overheated,” Frida said. “That’s all.”
“You should rest,” Anika said. She nodded to a door across hall. “My room is right there. You can lie down. I’ll clean this up and get you some water.”
Frida could have hugged Anika right then, not only because she was being so nice but also because she was letting her inside her room, as if they were actually friends.
“Thank you,” she said instead.
Alone on Anika’s bed, Frida waited for her stomach to mutiny again. But the nausea had passed as quickly as it arrived. What a capricious little fetus.
So you’re in there, Frida thought. If a baby could absorb nutrients from its mother’s bloodstream, then it must be able to intuit her thoughts, too. What number am I thinking of?