Dad smiles sadly.
“The man was coughing. Wheezing. He was about to pass out, probably die, and the fat woman and the broken-leg woman just kept on ignoring him! They were in his seat!” I’m talking quickly, leaning forward, in their faces, trying to make them understand. I’m almost pleading with them to see my side of the story, telling them how disgusting and unfair the entire thing was. I get up and pace. I start the story from the start, elaborating, maybe exaggerating, maybe the fat woman was fatter, maybe the coughs were more life-threatening, I try to get them to see what I saw, to say that they understand, that if they were in my shoes, they would have done the same. To tell me I am not Flawed.
Dad is watching with tears in his eyes. He is struggling with all this. It is Mom who jumps up suddenly and grabs me by the shoulders. Surprised by her grip, I look around and notice that the guy in the cell beside me is no longer sitting with his back to me but is instead on his bed, where he can see us. I wonder if he has in some way understood what I said, if he read my lips, but Mom grips me tighter and turns my focus back to her.
“Listen up.” Her voice is a low, urgent whisper. “We don’t have time. Judge Crevan is coming to see you in a few minutes, and you have to use every charm you’ve got. Forget everything we taught you. Right now, forget about right and wrong. This is for your life, Celestine.”
I have never seen or heard Mom like this, and she’s scaring me. “Mom, it’s just Bosco, he’ll under—”
“You have to tell him you were wrong,” she says urgently. “You have to tell him you know you made a mistake. Do you understand?”
I look from her to Dad in shock. Dad is covering his face with his hands.
“Dad?”
“Cutter, tell her,” Mom says quickly.
He slowly lowers his hands and looks so sad, so broken. What have I done? I crumple into Mom’s arms. She moves me to a chair at the table.
“But if I tell Bosco I was wrong, it will mean admitting I’m Flawed.”
Dad finally speaks. “If he finds out that you feel you were right to do what you did, then he will brand you Flawed.”
“Don’t lie about what you did, but tell him you made a mistake. Trust me,” Mom whispers, afraid of being overheard.
“But … the old man.”
“Forget the old man,” she says sternly, so coldly, so devoid of all the love that I know her to have, that I don’t recognize her, and for that I don’t recognize the world. They are my roots, my foundations, and they sit before me now uprooted and saying things I never thought they’d say. “You will not allow a Flawed to ruin your life,” she says, and her voice cracks.
We sit in silence as Mom tries to compose herself, to put the mask back on. Dad rubs her back smoothly, rhythmically, and I sit there, stunned. My thoughts are barely thoughts at all as they hop unfinished from one to the other over what they have just told me.
They want me to lie. They want me to say that what I did was wrong. But to even tell a lie is to be Flawed. To gain my freedom, I must for the first time become Flawed. It doesn’t make sense. It is illogical.
The main door opens, and Mom and Dad bristle. Judge Crevan is coming.
FOURTEEN
I NOTICE THE boy in the cell sit up, too. I see the flash of red before I see him. Judge Crevan is like a winged man with his floating bloodred cloak. I see his sparkling blue eyes and his blond hair, and I think of Art and I feel at home. He smiles at me through the glass, his eyes crinkling at the sides as they always do, and inside I relax. I feel safe.
“Celestine,” he says as soon as Tina lets him into the cell. He flashes his perfect white teeth and spreads his arms, and as he does, he looks like he’s lifting his wings, about to take off. I run straight into them, and he closes his arms, the red robe wrapped around me. I feel protected. In his cocoon. It will be all right. Bosco will take care of me. He won’t let this go any further.
As he hugs me, my cheek is pushed up against the rough crest on his chest. I am face-to-face with the Guild’s crest and motto, “Purveyors of Perfection.”
He kisses the top of my head and releases me.
“Right, let’s sit. We have a lot to discuss, Celestine.” He fixes me with one of his infamous stern gazes, and just as I always felt before, it looks comical, cartoonish. This is not the man I’m used to seeing in his house.
I hide the nervous smile that is twitching at my lips. Laughing now would not be good.
“Things are going to be very difficult for you over the next few days, but we’ll get you through them, okay?”
He glances at Dad, who suddenly looks completely exhausted, and I think for the first time what he’s had to tell people at work. How can he run a news station when his own daughter is headline news?
I nod.
“You’ll have to listen to me and do as I say.”
I nod again, feverishly.
“She will,” Mom says firmly, sitting poker straight in her chair.