“Please don’t,” he said. We all hated it. Our parents couldn’t afford to say it, but she got to.
“Well, it seems like a waste,” she said. “It doesn’t roll over.” Her Cuff pinged. Her face turned even more sour when she looked down at it. “Well, I hope you’re happy!”
She turned the Cuff for me to see. The message glowed the angry color of flame.
Your Custodianship for Nancee Mphinyane-Smil has been terminated. Please remit all associated payments dated forward from this time.
“What does that mean?” Sam asked, squinting.
“It means I’ve been removed as Nancee’s Custodian!”
“Why haven’t they removed you as our Custodian?” Sam asked.
“I’m sure you think you are very funny,” Mrs. Harris said. “We’ll see how you like it when Keene Inc. is your guardian.” She turned to Saretha, her only real ally in the room. “Will you please tell Speth that you want her to speak? I will pay for your words.”
Mrs. Harris was more desperate than I’d thought. She never offered to pay for words. I’d hurt her. Each child that left her guardianship was money out of her pocket.
I felt good about that. But I worried about what was going to happen to Nancee now.
“Saretha, Speth should know what you think,” Mrs. Harris offered softly.
Saretha put her hand to her forehead, blocking her eyes, like the room was too bright. She shook her head. It must have been hard for her not to say anything. I knew the effort of silence all too well. Did my mother’s signing of the zippered lips mean as much to her as it had to me?
Mrs. Harris threw up her hands. “I am trying to help! What do you think is going to happen? Do you have any idea of the trouble you are in? Do you realize how bad this looks?”
“For you,” Sam said.
“That’s right,” Mrs. Harris hissed. “For me! I am your Custodian! It looks terrible for you, too—for all of us. You’ve made it look like...” She stopped. I wanted to know what came next, but only because I’m sure that the words she didn’t say were the most important. In lieu of finishing her sentence, I hoped her pause would mean she was finished for the day, but sadly, she was not.
“It is disgraceful,” she went on. “To be frank, Speth, I know exactly why you are doing this. Saretha gets all the attention, and you think this is the way to turn the spotlight on yourself. I am sorry to say it, but behaving in this manner does not make you prettier or more interesting. Quite the opposite, if you ask me.”
It felt like she’d punched me. Is this what she really thought?
“No one ASKED YOU!” Sam roared.
Saretha’s head turned a little, and she eyed me pityingly.
I didn’t care what Mrs. Harris said, but it felt like poison in the room. Did Saretha believe it? I swallowed and turned my face away. I didn’t want to hear anymore. I couldn’t shut her up by staying; I would just be a target for her to shoot at.
I stood up and rushed out the door.
IRIDESCENCE: $13.99
My head pounded in the dry, late-day air. I blamed Mrs. Harris, but it wasn’t just her; it was everything. I found myself moving toward Falxo Park once again, and the bridge where Beecher killed himself. I remembered his lanky, miserable figure loping along in my mind and regretted ever knowing him. My eyes turned wet and then, like a lunatic, I laughed out loud, because I also missed him. I could laugh for free, but only if my Cuff deemed it to be genuine and “involuntary.”
Why had his grandmother approached me in the park? Did she know something I didn’t about why he had done it? What could she possibly say that would make it right?
Not far off, I saw her building. I had never actually been inside. A few times Beecher offered to take me to his place, but I assumed that was just a boy’s trick to get me alone. Thomkins Tower was not inviting. It was a dark, sloppy, printed slab scattered with tiny windows. There were no Placer handholds. There was no ornamentation. There were no overhanging eaves—even our building had those. The entire structure was slightly askew from the fourth floor up, where the building printer must have misaligned a few degrees and kept going.
I wondered if Mrs. Stokes was inside. I closed my eyes and pressed my fingers to my temples to ease the throbbing. Was she just playing games? Maybe she had good reason to want to talk in private. Maybe she had an Advil?.
I decided to go up. Whether she had something useful to say, or she was just playing games, at least I could do something.
Thomkins Tower had a reputation for being rough. I slipped inside her building quickly, hoping not to be recognized, but of course I was. Two rough-looking boys came right at me the minute I was inside. I was ready to fight them, for all the good it would do, but they pulled up short and each showed me the sign of the zippered lips. The sight stunned me as I passed. I reached the stairs, my face burning a little with shame from jumping to conclusions about their intentions.
I found her apartment on the third floor. I pressed the buzzer. A moment later, she opened her door. I didn’t wait for her to invite me in. I stepped inside. I hoped she wasn’t going to tell me Beecher had been in love with me. I didn’t want to know it. I didn’t want to believe that I’d played some part in his death. I looked up and saw the red-rimmed, haunted look in Mrs. Stokes’s eyes, and my anger at him and at her melted. I wished I had come up when Beecher asked. Now I had to imagine what it was like, the two of them living here.
Her place was smaller than ours. One wall had recently been printed over, no doubt removing the space that had once been allocated to Beecher. There was a couch and a stack of old, ratty-looking boxes along one wall. Her home had a window like ours, but too foggy to see through. It looked like it had been purposely sanded and scraped.
The other strange thing was that the room had no screen. I’d never been in a home without a screen. I stared at the blank wall where it seemed like one belonged, feeling weird in its absence. Nothing was glowing and serving Ads. I may have hated ours, but I was used to it. I found the noise and chatter of it comfortingly familiar. Her home seemed so quiet and lonely in comparison.
“I haven’t got a food printer, either,” she said hoarsely, pointing at the blank wall. “Or I would offer you a sheet of Wheatlock?.” She laughed, like this was funny. Maybe it was funny. Wheatlock? is disgusting.
How did she eat? She couldn’t possibly afford fresh food.
“You know Randall circumvented the programming and all that?”
Randall, I assumed, was Beecher’s father.
“You know why he did it?”
I had no idea.
“Ever try to use a food printer during a FiDo? They don’t work. WiFi goes down, and pretty much nothing works. Everything has to be connected to the tether. Everything. Randall didn’t like it. He worried about it. He said the whole city would starve, and for what?”
She sat herself down on the couch.