Nonplussed by it all, nearing the end of her tether, her skin crawling with nervous tension, Lilly decides the best way to find somebody is to stay put. So she trudges over to Austin’s apartment building on the east side of town, near the rows of semitrucks, and plants herself on the porch. Which is exactly where she now sits, Indian style, her elbows resting on her legs, her head in her hands.
The sun has dipped below the gigantic, saucer-shaped arena to the west, and the breeze has cooled, and now Lilly watches the last of the townspeople file past Austin’s place on their way to the big show. The fights are scheduled to start in a half hour, and Lilly doesn’t want to be anywhere near this place at that point, but she is determined to find the long-haired young man and drop her bombshell.
Less than five minutes later, Lilly is just about to give up when she sees a familiar figure emerging like a curly-maned avatar in hoodie and ripped jeans from the nimbus of sun rays slanting down across the mouth of the adjacent alley. He carries his knapsack slung over his shoulder, the unidentified contents bulging inside it. He looks solemn, maybe even a little lonely, until he turns the corner and heads for his building and sees Lilly on the stoop. “Oh my God,” he says, walking up to her, his eyes brightening suddenly like a little boy discovering an Easter basket under his bed. “I’ve been looking all over for you.”
Lilly stands, thrusts her hands in her pockets, and gives him a terse shrug. “Really … that’s funny. I’ve been looking for you.”
“Sweet,” he says and kisses her on the cheek, carefully dropping his knapsack on the entryway steps. “I got something for you.”
“Yeah? I got something for you, too,” she says, her expression blank.
Austin digs in the knapsack. “I was waiting for you over at your place but you never showed up.” He pulls out a lovely bouquet of purple aster surrounded by ivory-white baby’s breath, collected in a big rusty can with the Clabber Girl baking powder insignia faded on the side. All of which explains his strange behavior that day, rooting around the weeds and the trash piles. “Barbara said this white stuff is called Doll’s Eyes … isn’t that creepy and cool?!”
“Thank you,” Lilly says, taking the gift from him without emotion and setting it down on the step. “That’s very sweet of you.”
“What’s the matter?”
She looks at him. “So, what are your plans?”
“Huh?”
“You heard me.” Lilly puts her hands on her hips as if she’s about to fire him from a job. “For the future, I’m talking about.”
He cocks his head at her with a puzzled frown. “I don’t know … I guess I’m going to keep practicing with the Glock, get better at zapping the biters … maybe try to score another generator so I can get some tunes in my place?”
“That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it.” She chews her lip for a moment. “I’m talking about when and if we get outta this mess. What are your plans? For the rest of your life?”
His head cocks even farther, a more profound confusion crossing his features. “You mean like … a job and shit?”
“I mean like a career. I mean like growing up. What are your plans? You gonna be a professional beach bum? Rock star? Drug dealer … what?”
He stares at her. “What’s going on?”
“Answer the question.”
Austin puts his hands in his pockets. “Okay, first of all, I don’t know if there’s even gonna be a future to make plans for. Second of all, I have, like, no idea what I’m gonna do.” He studies her morose expression. He can tell this is no joke. “I got a degree and shit.”
“From where?”
He sighs, his voice losing some of its verve. “ATC.”
“ATC … what’s that?”
His voice goes even lower. “Atlanta Technical College.”
“Really?” She gives him a look. “What’s that, Austin? Some fucking Internet Web site where you pay nineteen ninety-five for a paper diploma and they send you coupons for an oil change and a résumé service?”
Austin swallows hard. “It’s a real school.” He looks down. “There’s a campus out by the airport.” His voice drops an octave. “I was studying to be a paralegal.”
“That’s just perfect.”
He looks at her. “What the hell, Lilly? Where are you going with this?”
She turns away from him for a moment and gazes out across the empty street. The noise of the crowd revving up for the fights a block and a half away echoes across the sky. She slowly shakes her head. “Truck pulls and strip clubs,” she mutters to herself.
Austin stares at the back of her head, listening intently, getting more and more worried. “What was that?”
She turns and looks at him. “It’s a man’s world, pretty boy.” Her face is a mask of pain. Her eyes have already started to well up. “You guys think everything is just a quick pop, and then it’s ‘sayonara.’ Well, it’s not. It’s not, Austin. Actions have consequences. The simplest choices can get your ass killed.”
“Lilly—”
“It’s true more than ever right now.” She holds herself as though she’s freezing. She gazes off again. “This world of shit we’re in, it isn’t very forgiving. You get yourself in a jam, and you’re dead … or worse.”
He reaches out and gently strokes her shoulder. “Lilly, whatever it is … we can deal with it. Together. Isn’t that what you told me? Gotta stick together? Tell me what’s going on. What happened?”
She pulls away from him and starts down the steps. “I don’t know what I was thinking,” she says in a voice crackling with disdain.
“Wait!” he calls to her. “Lilly, I can fix it … whatever it is.”
She pauses at the bottom of the steps. She turns and looks at him. “Is that right? You can fix it?” She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a small plastic instrument. It looks like a digital thermometer. “Fix this!” She tosses it to him.
He catches it and looks down at it. “What the hell is this?” Upon closer scrutiny, he sees the little window on the digital test vial and the words stamped next to it:
not pregnant:|
pregnant:||
The display shows two vertical lines, indicating a positive test result.
PART 2
Showtime
For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, nor ever shall be.