Not Now, Not Ever: A Novel
Lily Anderson
For Dad and Nil
The truth is rarely pure and never simple.
—Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest
Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.
—not actually Oscar Wilde
1
There was no empirical evidence that the Lieutenant wasn’t a robot.
And, really, if the government was going to pick a family to test run a cybernetic human, why wouldn’t they pick the Lawrences? Career air force going back to the Tuskegee pilots, all officers—except for our second cousin Terry, but no one ever talked about him. Strong bone structure with God and country stamped into the marrow. No genetic predisposition for diabetes or flat feet or nostalgia.
Then again, maybe living with my father and my stepmom, Beth, had made me soft.
There was nothing soft about the Lieutenant. My cousin was leaner than anyone else in the family, with ropy arms made for one-hand push-ups and cheekbones that tipped up the corners of her eyes. Her spine was a compass pointing her forever northward. She kept her hair at a regulation two inches high and her bare nails clipped short and her mouth set into a neutral line.
She didn’t bob her head as the restaurant’s speakers started thumping a Prince song. She didn’t put ketchup on her French fries. Her gaze flickered to her brother decimating a burger beside her, and then back to my face.
A slow blink. Another plain fry slipped between her teeth.
If the government was going to program the perfect airman, would they have thought to make them crave French fries to let them blend in with the rest of us? She could run on veggie oil like a converted diesel car.
Lieutenant Sidney Lawrence: now energy efficient! Fly, fight, win!
At least if she were a cyborg, she would have Asimov’s laws of robotics written into her code. Forcing a late-night dinner at the Davis In-N-Out burger in the name of familial bonding definitely counted as harmful. Sid alone I would have been able to deal with. Sure, she was intense in a black Terminator sort of way, but she was my oldest cousin and sometimes she had nuggets of wisdom to pass down.
Having to sit directly across from Isaiah, however, was an exercise in torture. He was the baby of the family, a year and some change younger than me. And, in a perfect world, we would only see each other on federal holidays and the occasional milestone birthday.
But tonight Sid had paid for my burger and agreed to drive me to the train station without question, so I wasn’t in a position to complain. At least, not out loud. It had been way too valuable to have my dad and stepmom see her drive me away from our house. It added real, tangible credit to my story.
“So, Ellie,” she said in between nibbles. “Your family won’t let you attend the summer program in Colorado Springs?”
Your family. No Venn diagram would force the Lawrences to acknowledge the other half of my genes. Even Grandmother Lawrence only referred to the Gabaroches as “those Creoles.” Like knowing that there were French people somewhere in the higher boughs of my dad’s family tree made them all suspect.
It’d been at least a century since any of the Gabaroches could even speak French. I’d been taking Spanish since middle school.
Plus, I couldn’t wear a beret without pressing my hair. No, thanks.
“Dad doesn’t want me to fly,” I said. I heard the squeak of my sneakers rubbing together and tucked my feet around the legs of my chair. The cold metal helped settle the twitch that had started up in my calves.
“That’s dumb,” Sid said. “You’re seventeen. We’d never let you in the air.”
I thought of the Air Force Academy pamphlet torn to shreds and buried under the junk mail in the blue recycle bin. Sid didn’t mean never the same way my father did. She was thinking of a temporary pause—a stop sign. But cadets turned into airmen. Not after the high school summer seminar, but eventually.
My father didn’t like eventualities.
“Don’t you miss In-N-Out burgers when you’re deployed?” Isaiah asked his sister.
He’d grown since Christmas. Sitting down, he was almost a full head taller than Sid. It could have been true for a while. The three of us hadn’t been in the same room at the same time since—when? Grandmother Lawrence’s sixty-fifth birthday? Back when the whole family was crowing about Isaiah skipping the eighth grade. He’s so gifted, they let him move right on into high school. Looks like he and Ellie are going to graduate in the same year. The academy better watch out.
Like anyone learned anything in the eighth grade.
“There’s decent food everywhere,” Sid said. “Especially burgers.”
“But no spread,” Isaiah said. His long Predator dreadlocks slithered around his shoulders as he squeezed more pink ooze onto his burger out of the red and white plastic tube. He’d always had a thing about sauces. He drenched his food until everything he ate could be considered a soup. I couldn’t sit next to him at holiday dinners anymore. Watching him drown his plate in equal parts gravy and cranberry sauce made me heave.
Gwendolen is devoted to bread and butter, my brain hummed. I tried to shoo the thought away. Not now, Oscar Wilde.
“It’s Thousand Island dressing,” Sid said. “So, yes, we could have that anywhere.”
“It’s not just Thousand Island,” Isaiah pouted, slurping a blob of Thousand Island off his dark brown hand. “It’s spread. Does Thousand Island have pickles cut up in it?”
“By definition, yes,” I said.
“Well, it tastes better when you can squeeze it onto burgers,” Isaiah said, continuing to coat his burger in chunky goop. He shook his head and hiccupped a laugh. “Who would put ketchup and pickles on a salad? That’d be like putting mayonnaise on pizza.”
“What do you think makes ranch dressing white?” I asked.
His upper lip curled. “Milk.”
“Isaiah, I told you to stop buying salad dressing. It’s empty calories,” the Lieutenant said. Then, as though sensing the scoff building up in the back of my throat, she snapped her head toward me again. “Elliot, when am I supposed to drop you at the train station?”
“By ten,” I said.
“I didn’t even know the train went all the way to So Cal,” Isaiah said.
“The railroads go everywhere. It’s even in a ‘Schoolhouse Rock’ song,” I said. “I guess they must have covered the Industrial Revolution in the back half of middle school.”
“Must have,” Isaiah said, not registering the dig. He idly licked a drop of spread off one of his dreads.
I pushed my fries away.