A Better World, page 8
A tide had turned. A judgment cast. Perhaps by now, they’d have been expected to have learned the secret password. The magic handshake. But they hadn’t, and now they really were outcasts.
On the drive home, Linda thought about how shitty these people were acting, as if all of Plymouth Valley were a life raft, and no one could be bothered to make room. She mentally composed a collection of questions for Zach in advance of their October meeting: if Russell lost his case, or was unsuccessful in pushing the hearing until he had the necessary data to testify accurately, would the Farmer-Bowens get kicked out immediately, or would the powers that be wait until his June review? Surely, if leaving wasn’t their choice, they were entitled to their deposit… Right?
As she pulled in, she noticed a large SUV parked at the head of their driveway—the fancy A-class hybrid kind that only the most important people drove. No one else was allotted the gas.
Were they getting kicked out so soon? With dread, the exhausted Farmer-Bowens all got out.
A gorgeous woman in a shearling jacket stepped down and out. “Dr. Farmer? Linda Farmer?”
Though she was in no mood, Linda slapped on a smile. So did Russell. The kids, sensing the prompt, smiled, too. “That’s me!”
The woman, who was as tall as Russell, looked to be in her late forties, but fit and rich, with growth factor–injected laugh lines and large, perky breasts. Possibly, she was the most beautiful woman Linda had ever seen. “You’re hard to track down. I’ve been sending texts all morning!” she called as she closed the distance between them.
“Texts to me?” Linda asked. “I’m sorry! I forgot my device.”
“Don’t you always carry your device?” It wasn’t rude. A friendly scold. Her accent wasn’t thick, either. She talked almost as fast as an outsider. “How’ll you know if your kids need you? Or your husband?” She winked at Russell and the kids.
Linda’s charm tank had run out of fuel. She meant this funny, but it came out bitchy: “They’ll use their words? I’ve been with them all day?”
“Oooh. Peppery,” the woman purred.
“I’m sorry. That was rude,” Linda said.
“But I like pepper. I like outsiders, too. I used to be one.” She turned to the kids. “You’re Josie and Hip?”
Warily—tired of niceties—the kids agreed that they were.
The woman shook Russell’s hand, too. “Russell Bowen, right? So great to meet you.”
Then she was back to Linda. “I’ve got that right, don’t I? You’re the new pediatrician who’s looking for work?”
“Emergency and general—” she started, but the woman cut her off.
“—Faboo! We convene tonight at Sirin’s Bar and Grill to talk strategic operations and budget, and after that we have dinner. You’ll be arriving for the dinner part, around eight.”
“Tonight? Is this about the medical clinic? Will I be interviewing for a position?”
“Maybe! If it works out, great. If not, I’m sure we can still be friends.”
Linda nodded like this made perfect sense, though it made no sense. The rest of her family had backed up, all making their best efforts to seem polite and benign. “I’m sorry, but who are you?”
Chuckling like they were in on a joke together, the woman gripped Linda’s forearm. It was the first time anyone aside from her family had touched her since moving here, and she realized right then that she was very lonely. “Right! You’re new. I’m Daniella Bennett.”
“Are you related to Lloyd Bennett?” Lloyd Bennett was Russell’s boss’s boss; BetterWorld’s CEO, to whom Heinrich reported.
“Please extend my salutations!” Russell chimed.
Salutations? What were they, aliens?
“I will absolutely salute him,” Daniella said in a teasing way. Then, to Linda: “You can come? It’s a great group. I’m a bit of a bitch. We all are because poop it. Someone has to assert themselves among these sheep.” Then she laughed. “I mean, Hollow? Get out of here with that nonsense. It’s so many rules! How can anyone possibly remember all of them? Don’t even get me started on the birds. Can’t we just eat chicken?”
Linda didn’t dare laugh, but she grinned.
“We’re a great group. We work hard to make things better. Then we reward ourselves with too much red wine. We really do need a doctor. Say you’ll come?”
* * *
They looked up the charity, ActHollow, and its members in the Who’s Who directory, a hefty print book updated every year that listed every resident in town and provided folksy page-long biographies. Everyone involved in ActHollow was a hotshot—a board member or related to one.
“This could be big,” Russell said.
She spent too long getting ready, practicing answers to imaginary questions in the mirror: It’s true, my grades weren’t good, and I tested at the bottom, too. Not everyone comes from the same place or has the same advantages. I’m an excellent doctor now. In her imagination, they grilled her, their comments adversarial. (Why did you move to part time after your twins? Don’t you have any ambition? Are you sure you’re capable of implementing our technology? It’s far more advanced than anything you saw in New York.) In reply, she made an award-worthy speech that brought them all to weeping tears. In the end they hugged her and told her she was both hired and also the coolest person they’d ever met. By the time she left the mirror, she was wet eyed, too.
Sometimes she wondered: Was she crazy or charmingly whimsical? Unclear!
Finally, wearing jeans, boots, and an old wool sweater (the Omnium tracksuit seemed too casual, and the bespoke stuff she’d ordered from PV’s clothing store, Fabric Collective, hadn’t arrived), she came down to find her family in the kitchen eating pizza. They were physically healthier since the move, but this relentless hazing had chafed. The skin under Russell’s eyes was dark. The twins had lost their zest. Everyone seemed soggy, like cereal left in the bowl too long.
“What time do you think you’ll be home?” Russell asked.
“No idea. If I’m late, don’t wait up. You need the sleep.”
He nodded with relief. “You nervous?”
Like Hip, he’d eaten half his pizza slice very neatly, the bites evenly sized, no crumbs. The plate and water glass were equidistant from the computer. He was nervous, she could see, which was making her more nervous.
“Nope!”
The Night of the Fire
“No more tables tonight,” the host said. They wore a neon blue tuxedo dress with ruffles, their glitter-decorated dayworker badge pinned to their breast pocket like a corsage. After glancing at Linda in her outsider sweater and jeans, they looked straight ahead, as if she’d profoundly failed at the general task of existence.
“I’m here for Daniella Bennett,” Linda answered.
Like magic, their eyes popped and they snapped to attention. “Oh! Follow me!”
Sirin’s Bar and Grill was located in a former stone church, the oldest building in Plymouth Valley and the only edifice that predated the town. The large altar in back had been repurposed as a bar and bandstand. Crowded tables fanned out like spokes on a wheel. Linda stopped when she got to three pushed-together four-tops, where about half the Roc team parents caroused. She’d curled her hair and applied red lipstick. Her jeans fit snug, revealing decent curves and a still-perky ass. She didn’t look PV, but she did look good.
Amir did a double take, seeming at first not to recognize her, all dolled up.
“Where are you headed? I didn’t know you came here.” He was drinking a double shot of something alcoholic and brown. Mead, probably. This was a Roc parent get-together, from which the Farmer-Bowens had been excluded. They showed zero contrition, nor any indication that they ought to at least pretend.
“I’m meeting a group called ActHollow.”
At the mention of Daniella Bennett’s group, the others stopped chattering and gave the conversation their attention. “ActHollow! How’d you snag that invitation?” Amir asked, his voice sharp, even as he grinned. It was an affectation she’d grown to recognize as classic Plymouth Valley.
“They’re interviewing me for a position.”
“Well, tell her I say hello. In fact, once you’re done, tell them all to come over and have a drink with us,” Amir said. He seemed to think about it, then added, “You can come, too!”
“Yes, tell them we say hello!” added the goalie’s mom, an administrator in Russell’s department who’d never acknowledged Linda before this but was now flashing prayer hands. “Tell them Ruth Epstein says hello!”
Linda scanned these people whose acceptance she so badly wanted. They kind of sucked. “Will do!”
She caught up with the host along a wide service hall. They slid open a stained-glass door, then retreated, leaving Linda peering into a private room.
Three women sat along the far end of a rectangular table, papers messily strewn between them. “Linda, you clean up great, you hot bitch!” Daniella cried as she stood. She hugged Linda hard enough to accordion-out her breath. “If I weren’t married, I’d be on you!”
“Holy bananas. You’re SO strong!” Linda gasped.
Daniella kept holding her with warmth. Her tight blue denim coveralls fit like driving gloves. “Free weights. Lloyd likes a little wrestling between the sheets. We old marrieds have to keep it spicy.”
It was so charmingly inappropriate that Linda laughed.
“I say anything. I say everything. I’m radically honest,” Daniella said. She held Linda an extra beat before letting go, and Linda had the feeling the gesture was intended to steady: I invited you, and I have your back.
Next came Rachel Johnson. She was a bone-thin Black woman in her late thirties. Her smile was etched with premature wrinkles. Either she was a smoker or chemically treated faces were so normalized around here that Linda’d forgotten what natural aging looked like. Linda’d seen her at the Beltane Crowning—she’d been onstage with the rest of BetterWorld’s board. She was BetterWorld’s compliance director, whatever that meant.
Rachel shook Linda’s hand. “Welcome. You’re gonna hate this town!” she said in a jokey way.
“I hope not. That deposit wasn’t cheap!”
Rachel winked with sly good nature as the third and final member of the group, Anouk Parson, kissed Linda on both cheeks. Her open mouth left saliva. Linda made a conscious effort not to wipe it away.
“Disregard our resident gadfly. You’ll love it here. Greetings from the first lady of Plymouth Valley!” Anouk gushed in an incredibly thick PV accent. You could have floated heavy metal on it. She wore a loose, ankle-length dress topped with a patchwork shawl that looked like the back of someone’s couch. Linda had read in Anouk’s lengthy bio (two pages instead of one) that in addition to being a prizewinning poet and Plymouth Valley royalty, she was the town historian.
The women returned to their seats. Unlike the people in the main room, the clothing here looked tossed together, the makeup undone. They seemed relaxed—comfortable in their skin. Linda didn’t get the feeling any of these women clapped in syncopation. Or, if they did, they led the rhythm.
“Come, Linda! Be my favorite!” Daniella called, indicating the empty seat beside her.
Panting from nervousness and trying hard not to pant, she sat. Directly across, Rachel gathered the loose papers into a multicornered pile. Linda spotted some of the words in bold black: MRI; X-ray; Requisition for Surplus Medical Equipment.
“I hope I didn’t interrupt your meeting. Do you need more time?”
“We just finished,” Daniella said. “Did you find Sirin’s all right?”
“The GPS did most of the work. It’s the happening place.”
“The only place,” Daniella said. “We’re a peanut of a town. You’re coming from New York?”
“The Great Melting Pot!” Anouk said. She lifted the bottle at the center of the table and poured something burgundy and thick into Linda’s goblet.
Daniella raised her glass. “To Dr. Linda Farmer! Who was gracious enough to drop everything on a Saturday night!”
“To Linda, our next victim!” Rachel cheered.
“To Linda!” Anouk joined.
They toasted and drank. “Is this wine? I get why people in screenies go crazy for this. It’s like candy,” Linda said.
“Shipped direct from New Zealand. Those mining executives know how to build a company town,” Daniella said.
“Please. This crap is jet fuel. But it’s better than mead,” Rachel said, making a yuck face.
“Everything with you is a complaint,” Anouk said.
Rachel winked at Linda, and Linda decided she liked her. She conveyed a messy realness. She also liked Daniella, who vibed phony, but also funny and competent. Anouk was a maybe. She seemed removed from the real world in a way that was specific to Plymouth Valley.
“My husband and I are having a War of Roses,” Rachel explained. “He’s the fourth member of this charity—does all the logistics, my general partner in crime—but he hasn’t come to a meeting in a while.”
“—What’s he done now, the fink?” Daniella asked.
“—The divorce thing again. I don’t know where he thinks he’ll go.”
“—You know I love him, but he’s an emotional Tehran,” Daniella said.
“—Oh, no! The divorce thing again? We’ll offer some pomegranates for a satisfactory resolution,” Anouk said. Except for Anouk, who talked slowly, the other two chattered rapid fire.
“It’ll take more than a bloody pomegranate to get Kai off my back,” Rachel said. “I was hoping you’d send Keith over. Have him wear his Beltane Crown; stand outside the house and stare into Kai’s bedroom, looking terrifying.”
“He’d poop his pants,” Daniella whispered, scandalized.
“That’s the goal,” Rachel said.
Anouk huffed with exasperation. “The last thing Keith needs is to get in trouble for wearing a Hollow costume outside a festival. Daddy already thinks that this Beltane King thing’s gone to his head.”
Rachel noticed Linda quietly tracking all this and sighed. “Blah, blah, blah. Other peoples’ problems are so boring.”
“Not at all,” Linda said. “I’m sorry you’re going through this, but it’s a relief to hear people say what they’re thinking. I don’t get that very often around here.”
“They’re islands within islands in this town, aren’t they?” Rachel asked. “Not even they know what the hell they’re thinking.”
Linda tried to be diplomatic, made a wide eye.
“Yes, how’s your adjustment going, Linda?” Daniella asked.
Linda blushed. “I love it. The people are so nice. I can’t believe we got in.” Her voice was an octave higher than usual, her head nodding like a bobble doll’s. When she lied, she tended to oversell.
“Oh, they’re nice to you?” Rachel asked. “You’re the one exception in the history of this town?”
“Don’t put her in the hot seat. She doesn’t know us,” Daniella said, her black brows gathering toward the bridge of her long, bulbed nose. Then, putting Linda in the hot seat anyway, she asked, “Are they truly nice? Are they inviting you to things?”
Linda nodded her head, then shook it. Rachel’s wine-red, eyetooth-prominent smile spread slow and amused.
“I hate this hazing thing! I’m nice to everyone,” Anouk said. “I can’t abide people who aren’t. They don’t belong. Linda, you’ll have to give me names. I’ll have Daddy investigate. We can’t be a thriving community if we reject fresh perspectives. It’s a Hollow tenet—we need new genes in the pool.”
“They’re a wet bag’a’dicks,” Rachel said, finishing her glass and pouring more. She topped everyone else off, too.
“I get it,” Linda said. “There’s a limited number of spots. But the vehemence of our ostracization has taken me by surprise.”
“Vehemence is one word for it,” Rachel said.
“Yes, but what does it mean?” Daniella asked.
“Spiritedness. Sometimes I think you do that on purpose,” Anouk said. “You want to soothe everyone’s egos and let them think they’re smarter than you. But I’m a genius. I literally have a 165 IQ. My ego doesn’t need that.” Then she turned to Linda. “Daddy says people are scared because there’s less spots than there used to be. We used to cap our population at 5,000 but we lowered it to 4,500. Contraction’s a normal part of every company’s life cycle. Even Plymouth Valley needs to expunge in order to purify.”
“Right. Totally,” Linda said, trying to hide her shock that she’d just heard a grown woman say Daddy for the third time in a single night. Then: “The one thing that surprised me was that soccer here still employs sudden death.”
“Ooooh noooo,” Rachel moaned. “Your kids don’t play soccer, do they?”
Linda’s voice got high pitched and squeaky. “The pamphlet said it was just for fun!”
Rachel shook her head. Daniella made a sympathetic frown. Anouk covered her ears, like she’d just heard something savage.
“I should have known. I can’t believe I’m so stupid. Poor Hip—that’s my son. He’s just fine at it, but he’s not great, like the rest of them.”
“How would you have known?” Rachel asked, then indicated the outside of the room with her hands, to the wider expanse of the restaurant and the town. “These people wouldn’t have told you.”
“Rachel exaggerates. Most people are lovely,” Anouk said. Then, voice lowered, as if admitting something: “But the schemers love to compete. They make soccer… traumatic.”
“My kids swim,” Rachel said. “Lessons five days a week. That way they don’t get fat but they also don’t have to deal with the bullshit. Sign Hip up for that. But at the pool. Don’t let him swim in the river. It’s got an undertow.”
“Really? We swam all summer and it was calm.”
“Don’t do it again,” Daniella agreed. “It takes you by surprise. Only people who don’t know any better swim in the river. But Rachel, is it called an undertow? What makes an undertow?”
