“Can I think about it,” Mack states. It’s not a question.
“Of course. But let me know by tomorrow. If you don’t want the spot, I’m sure someone else will. It’s a lot of money, Mackenzie. For a silly game!” The woman laughs again. “I’d enter it myself, but I can’t go more than twenty minutes without needing to pee.” She waits for Mack to laugh, too.
She’s still waiting as Mack slides out through the door, not even a whisper in her wake.
* * *
—
Everything about the shelter is designed to remind them that nothing is theirs. There are no lockers. No alcoves. No closets. No bedrooms. In a featureless box of a space, the ceiling looming so far overhead a bird lives in the beams, there are cots. Each has the same stiff white sheets and scratchy blankets. The area beneath the cots is to be kept clear at all times. They are not allowed to use the same cot more than two nights in a row. Anything not cleared by nine a.m. will be confiscated and thrown out, so they can’t even leave their meager possessions on the cot that is not theirs.
When the cots are all filled, Mack is as good as hidden. She’s small. She’s quiet. But now she feels as though a spotlight has been trained on her. Everyone else has already cleared out for the day. Some will go to whatever work they’ve found. Several will sit outside on the sidewalk until they’re allowed back in at four p.m. The rest, who knows. Mack doesn’t ask. Mack doesn’t tell. Because she goes somewhere she doesn’t want any of them to know about, either.
Hidden behind a half wall, choked with the scent of burning dust, an old water heater sizzles and rages. She has permanent shiny burns on her hands from where she scales the water heater, wedges herself between walls, and shimmies up.
The bird in the beams she has named Bert. It’s been building a nest, finding scraps of trash, even hair. But what is it building it for? How will it find a mate, have eggs? Won’t it live forever alone, safe and protected in the dusty dark up there? Mack lies on her stomach all day, three beams over from Bert, just existing. Patient and empty like the nest. And then when it’s four p.m., she shimmies down and joins the weary throng claiming a cot that will never be their own.
She’ll be able to think up in her spot by the bird, safe and hidden. But she has until tomorrow to decide. Maybe she won’t think until then.
She stops midstride.
All the cots are stripped. Including the one she used last night. The one she left her pack on because she wasn’t allowed to bring anything into her mandatory meeting. For security reasons.
Her pack is gone, which means she now owns only what she’s wearing. Which means she can’t even wash her clothes without standing over the sink, naked. And what public restroom will let her do that? She’ll be noticed. She’ll be seen.
She knows better than to ask the women who run the shelter to return her bag. They won’t, and she’ll be labeled trouble. Her time here is over. She can’t sink beneath what little security she already had. She’s seen what it looks like, what it costs.
Olly olly oxen free. A gradual corruption of the phrase “All ye outs come free.” But nothing is ever free.
In the office, the blond woman’s smile has not dropped a single millimeter, as though she was waiting. As though she knew.
“Okay,” Mack whispers. “I’ll do it.” Come out, come out, wherever you are, he sings in her head.
She won’t. She’ll win.
And after all, her life doesn’t depend on it this time.
Fourteen competitors. Seven days. The list is set. Arrangements have been made for delivery inside the park—food, gas for the generator, blankets and cots and whatever else is needed. Supplies have been gathered for outside the park. Cellphone jammers. Movies and books for the interminable wait. Power washers for the inevitable ending.
The list is distributed, along with photos. Everyone is expected to memorize it. Few do. The competitors are tacked onto the wall at Ray’s diner one by one. No one is supposed to bet on the outcome—it’s strictly against the rules—but it doesn’t stop them from ranking, making predictions, picking a favorite. The competitors can be divided into two groups.
Those who are best described as aspiring:
A social media fitness model
A graffiti artist
A YouTube prank-show host
An app developer-slash-house sitter
A jewelry designer-slash-dog walker
A zealous CrossFit instructor
An actress with severe food allergies
Those who are best described as stalled:
A writer with severe people allergies
A boy equal parts banished and lost
The kindest gas station attendant in Pocatello, Idaho
A veteran
A solar panel salesman
An eternal intern
And Mack, who is nobody, if she has her way
* * *
—
Seventeen hours on a bus to another bus to a third bus to a glorified minivan, and finally Mack is delivered to the middle of the middle of nowhere. She often wonders which is more anonymous: a big city with so many people to notice that no one notices anyone, or the empty countryside where no one lives. Stepping off the van into a swirl of dust, greeted by no one, she suspects the former. She can see for what feels like miles in either direction down the road. Which means she can be seen, as well.
If she doesn’t win, will they give her a bus ticket back? Or will she be stuck here? She doesn’t even know where here is, unsure what state she’s in. It’s green, wildly so, with huge trees and droning insects. It seems flat, but she can’t see beyond the road or the trees.
She sits on the side of the road, clutching the Ox Extreme Sports duffel bag she was given. It contains seven shirts and four pairs of pants. They’re all a weary shade of black. New but already faded, somehow. They feel familiar.
There’s also a toiletries kit, which feels like a tender mercy. There were several granola bars and a bottle of water, but those disappeared a few hours into the seventeen she spent getting here. Hungry is hungry. No point in stretching out what she has when she can have the luxury of a full stomach once.
After an hour, her unease sharpens, pulling ever tighter. No one has come. The trees loom at her back. The road stretches, empty.
Has the game already begun? Has she already lost?
It could be worse. She’s endless miles from where she knows, but she has clothes. Toothpaste, a toothbrush, deodorant, a comb. A sturdy bag. She’s technically ahead of where she was before.
The protest of a much-abused automobile suspension greets her long before another van pulls up. She’s resigned. It’s here either to pick her up—found!—or to deliver her to the actual game.