The Only Ones (30 page)

“I want to go to Migan’s school!”

Where is this coming from? She didn’t see Migan for years. But now that it came up, this does not seem like such a bad idea. She hates East Side Girls. I was not crazy about it myself. Maybe they used up their Diversity at Migan’s school and could use some more. I could try and track down Lore and Dana, but what if I need to come up with Partial? Let’s see what’s going on with sales from the Farm. It’s more than a year since the Newburgh Harvest. We should of got some call by now.

When we finally get to Lorena Hutz’s personal Dome, late, I sneak off while Ani watches TV and message Rauden from her personal Board. WHAT ABOUT THE SALES?

While she is playing a Game at the Tomkos’ personal patio Dome, I sneak back to Lorena Hutz’s personal Board for Rauden’s reply. WE NEED TO TALK.

While Ani is home in bed, I sneak off to Oakland Gardens, where they still had floaters like the kind I used in the old Queensbridge days, and I finally got through to Rauden who is like we cannot talk. I go, I thought we have to talk. Not This Way. It is not safe to talk This Way. Come up to the Farm. So here we go again! I do miss the Farm and Rauden but am nervous what will happen if he finds out how Ani is doing.

I tell Rauden I will get back to him. Then I start to walk home. Then I think I see someone in robes! I backtrack, go zigzag, then take the long way home around the golf course. By the time I get to bed it’s so late I wake up almost too tired to do anything. But I must get up, get dressed, mix breakfast Process, and here we go again.

“Ani! Time to leave.”

“Ma! I’m hot.”

Sometimes I started to think Janet Delize was right. I should of showed her who was boss when I had the chance. Too late now.

Thirteen years, three months old.

“Ani! Want to help me with my chores?”

She does not want to help.

Cissy Fardo showed me who was boss. Edgar Vargas showed me who was boss. That did not work out so great—I ended up with
my
life. Do I have to let Ani show
me
who’s boss so
she
will have a different life? I just don’t know how this works. In the morning before she wakes up, I study Alma Cho’s old pamphlets on the steps. It turns out the Parent is supposed to be a role model, what they call, role model.

But what if I don’t want her to be me?

I don’t know who to go to for advice. I’m not going to ask Janet Delize or she’s going to say I should of shown Ani who was boss. I’m not going to ask Rauden or he’s going to say, oh! Oppositional? That’s it for the track record.

Thirteen years, four goddamn months old.

Still alive.

I goddamn was too.

We are on Northern Boulevard waiting for the Transport for the first day of Year goddamn Three at East Side goddamn Girls, with Ani in the Third Year Hygienic uniform, with the Royal Blue new goddamn tie. I don’t even know how I got to September. It’s still goddamn hot, one of the hottest. We’re the only ones at the Stop this year. I don’t know what happened to Yselma and Agosto.

Ani is just standing away from me, squinting at the ground. This is the new thing. Squinting. She squints all the time. She just takes a few steps to the road to check is the Transport coming, in this year’s new Crewes I bought her at Iron Triangle for school. She got lipstick. Man! Where did she find that? I think she got taller. We still could pass. She really has a whole different shape from me, in the uniform, and the tie, and the lipstick.

She looked so cute.

I go, “Very good. So this year it could work. It is a Challenge but an Opportunity.”

“Ma, you don’t even know what that means.”

The Transport finally rolls up, she just gets on alone and off she goes.

Then I am bouncing off the walls at Mrs. Postow’s and Lorena Hutz’s and all my jobs until it’s time to race across Queens to the Stop, the minivan pulls up, the doors open, and who’s that coming down the steps? Ani Fardo, still alive.

vi

Well, maybe you are thinking, come on. How bad could things be now? It’s Year Three at East Side stupid Girls, just one more year to go. It’s going to be ok.

Well, I thought so too. But it’s not even October when I get a message through Lorena Hutz. Get to Ms. Chaffee’s office right away. I made it in record time, running to the pod, the ferry, the Lock, then up the school stairs. Ani stole a girl’s swipe. Make an appointment with Ms. Chaffee’s assistant, Don, for a special Conference. Ms. Chaffee is concerned Ani could be a Bad Influence on the other girls. That’s it. So I ran across Queens for this? I’m still catching my breath when Ani and I go down the hall to Don’s office in the next room over, behind a little plexi fence, and he is really busy but will schedule a Conference once he calls up my daughter’s files. He punches Ani’s name in. Then all at once, he freezes at the screen.

Oh! Shit! It is always something!

Remember the problem of who swipes in last with pure code? I was in such a rush when I swiped in at the school scanner, I forgot to crash the system. So her name called my files. He punched in Ani’s name and it came up me.

I think fast and pretend to feel sick. He hurried off supposedly to get me water but I guarantee he will come back in a Hygienic mask. I run around the plexi fence to his system, crash it fast, and when he returns—wearing a Hygienic mask!—I’m already back on my side of the fence and say, oh thanks for the water, I feel better already.

Ani is just staring at me.

Don too. “That’s funny,” he goes. Because now the screen’s black. He gives me a look, over the mask.

Then he gives Ani a look. But I guess the problem is fixed because when his system reboots, he peers at the screen and says, “Hmm. Ok.”

Then all at once the eyes look back at my face, hard, over his mask. Then Ani’s face. Then me. Then Ani.

I turn my face away, like, oh, what is that on the wall?

In the end, he just shrugs. He gets over it. Still, that’s the first time since Ani started kindergarten I took it serious, someone could notice something.

I really need this complication. Ok, I will start to wear a scarf. If somebody looks at us funny, I will hide my face.

On the ferry back, I say, “Ani? Why would you steal a swipe?”

She didn’t say anything, just squinted until we got to the podtram, which is delayed from some new lesser flu caution and we just wait and wait and I try again. “You have your own swipe, Ani.”

Then she said, “So? That stupid girl got three goddamn swipes at home,” and after that not one word the whole way home.

So from now on, Conference this, Conference that. And I just got a new Nassau County client to pay the new balance I must spend this year on Ani’s transfer Aide! The new client pays me in vegetables she grew, and I must sell or barter them at Iron Triangle Bazaar which takes another two hours out of my week. I already got all the vegetables I need from the chores I do for Norma Pellicano’s friend Mort. I tell Don I am having a problem scheduling the next Conference and he is like, and I should care because?

At the next Conference I saw a sign posted, all Year Three girls and their Parent should fill in forms for where they want to go to Upper School. Ms. Chaffee says, oh no need for Ani to be concerned BECAUSE WITH HER GRADES SHE’S NEVER GETTING IN!

Thirteen and a half years old.

It is already cold. She grew so much she will need a new coat, and where is the money coming from?

Still alive.

Ms. Chaffee says Ani might do better to transfer somewhere else, even at this late date.

She is almost graduating!

Well, we will see about that. Would I consider Armory Prep?

I never heard of that.

Ani rolls her eyes like, Ma, you never heard of anything.

Well, it seems there is a lot of complaint, the Diversity that gets into these fancy Dome schools, what good does it do? They don’t learn useful skills for their own life. Why not start a really special Diversity school just for Diversity? They put it inside an Armory in the Bronx with very high walls so nobody runs away. They sleep there on cots. The fees are token and they learn useful skills. They could even go on to a career in Enforcement.

Well, that is really going to work. Ani is a crime against nature. What is she, going to bust herself?

I just say, well Ani is not ready for sleepaway school.

Ms. Chaffee says there could be some other school where she could learn skills more useful in her Zone.

Hmm, useful skills. She already could forage, a little. She could grow potatoes. She could stay alive. In our Zone, that is pretty much the useful skills. She already got them.

I say, “I was hoping she could be a Tech.”

Ani squints so hard her eyes shut.

Ms. Chaffee says, “Yes, well I can see in your Zone there might be a need for Techs but that work takes character.”

Well, I don’t know if it is in the genes, but I did not punch Ms. Chaffee’s lights out.

Is that character or what?

“Ani!” I’m in the kitchen, opening Process Paks. Outside, the wind is blowing so hard the windows shook. “Do your work!”

She is on the sofa watching TV. “Why? I’m not getting into Upper School anyway.” Then we both say, “Shit,” at the same time. The power went off.

“Get the wick, Ani.”

She gets the wick, and I light it with an Iron Triangle gizmo I traded vegetables for.

“You know what Melanie used to say. You could do anything.” I bring food to the table with the glass top. “Maybe you could find some other way to be a Tech.”

“Ma! What is it with the Tech? You don’t even know how dangerous it is.” She is scarfing Process down. “A Tech gets exposed. A Tech could get something bad!”

Sometimes I almost want to tell her why she won’t. But how do I explain without spilling the beans? Without the gene for gene part of the story, Sylvain hardy does not make sense even if she knows I am a Sylvain hardy unless I make up some lie about a hardy Dad but I’m not going there. She could figure something out. Sometimes I think she already did.

Sometimes I see her look at me hard like Don looked at me hard. Like if we are both near the mirror, side by side, she looks at us both. Her/me. Her/me. I can tell you this. I’m not wearing some goddamn scarf at home.

Christmas will be here soon.

Xochitl is missing too. I look for her when I’m coat shopping at Iron Triangle. Maybe she knows what happened to Yselma and Agosto, but somebody said Xochitl got something. They didn’t know if Yselma got something. Someone else said, no, a Fundy torched them because they were trying to do another Host swap. I don’t know which it is.

I heard from Alma Cho some new flu was around. Well, it’s true there are more fires, and the caution tape is getting so bad, I got to work my way around it on my way to the next stupid Conference, just before winter break. Ani is failing three courses and must do them over. She will not get Aid for the do-over.

“Please! Could she even get Partial Aid? I would pay the balance.”

Ms. Chaffee is like, that is really going to happen. But ok. I must bring the first downpayment when we come back from winter break.

Ferry to Hunter’s Point.

“Ani! You must do your work!”

“Whatever.”

Podtram home. I am really tired.

But I must do chores for oldies. Fix dinner. Stay on Ani’s case, will she do her goddamn work. “I’m busting my tail to keep you in this school. And do not say it, Ani.”

So she doesn’t. She doesn’t say she hates that school.

Thirteen years, seven months old.

Alma Cho says old Norma Pellicano died. She didn’t get anything, she was just old.

And I would like to go to the ceremony, but I am too busy picking frozen potatoes in the dark for Mort’s friend Pandit, then cut them up, then rush home to make dinner and breathe down Ani’s neck, did she do the work.

When the next message comes from Ms. Chaffee, after winter break, at February, I think it is because I was a little short on the Partial balance I must pay. I get a coupon advance from Mrs. Postow and Loretta Hutz and head off in a rush. You cannot get on the Bell Boulevard podtram Stop. The pod is taped all the way back to Flushing Meadows! I grabbed a shaw to make our way around the tape. Northern Boulevard is totally blocked. We took smoky side streets till we saw body bags on Cherry Avenue. Body bags! It’s been a while since I saw that. The driver just dumped me out and went the other way. I just run the rest of the way to Flushing Cemetery, where the pod still worked. By the time I got to East Side Girls, I’m two hours late, but it’s ok! I do not need the coupons! It is not the problem because guess what?

Ani punched a girl.

I’m standing in the office panting and soaked in Hygiene spray they sprayed at the door, and I’m like well it will not happen again, and Ms. Chaffee is like you are really right. Ani is expelled.

Ani is just squinting at the floor.

I am just in shock. I am just breathing deep. “Please,” I go.
“Please.”
I even went on my knees. “Please give her one more chance.”

Ms. Chaffee waits like maybe she would, but she is just breathing deep herself. Then she lets it out. I GAVE HER EVERY CHANCE I COULD! She got the Aid, the Aide, the Partial, the uniform. That is the problem with Diversity kids, they think they are the only ones in the entire world. They think they are the only ones who count. I have done what I could for your daughter but she is a Bad Influence on the other girls. I am responsible to them too. “I will tell you this—as Oppositional as Ani is,” Ms. Chaffee goes, “no wonder they won’t sit with her.”

Well, Ani looks up now. And I am hoping she will say, please. Please give me a chance. Guess what? She looks Ms. Chaffee in the eye and goes, “Well that’s their goddamn problem. I hate this school.”

Ok, there goes the different life.

Don took the Passes off our swipes so we cannot get in again or even through the Dome Lock.

They will let her keep the uniform. That’s it.

“Ma!” Ani is at my bedroom door. “I could plant potatoes.”

I’m just lying in the dark. I didn’t fix dinner, nothing.