The Brink (7 page)

Langy swanned toward a mirror and saw her, suddenly, in the reflection. Without turning, with the delicacy of someone who felt comfortable being observed, he smiled and waved her in.

She entered and Langy pat the cot next to him. It squeaked when she sat. Langy ran the back of his hand down the length of Haley's hair, and then he took a brush from his table and showed it to her, asking permission. Haley nodded, not entirely sure what she was agreeing to, and then Langy was combing her hair. As a girl, when her mother did it for her, it relaxed her like nothing else could. Her mother would say, “Tell me everything,” and she would spill.

Haley closed her eyes and while Langy brushed, the story came out. Saul, who managed to get her pregnant after fucking her twice. The nausea she had to lie to Mac about, and her rage that Saul had appeared in her life so casually only to
come this close to detonating it. She just kept talking, about the clinic and cramps that followed, until what was buried inside her, this hidden awfulness, had been released.

When she finished, Langy lifted her left hand up to his face.

He peered closely at her wedding band. Then Langy turned to his bedside table and rustled through the drawer. It was teeming with jewelry—bracelets, necklaces, a jumble of glamour. He held his fist over her open palm and released a small loop of metal. A ring. White gold and expensive, but not theirs. Inside the loop was engraved for “my most beautiful —J.”

“Where did you get this?” Haley asked.

Langy put his hands together and made a diving motion.

The boy, Langy's partner on the raft, entered the room breathlessly and stopped. In his hands he had a backpack. The top flap was open, revealing a row of metal pipes capped with duct tape. Langy leapt up and closed the flap. They spoke quickly and Haley understood that she didn't belong, had come to the end of the detour and was now risking her life. She wanted to leave, but Langy and the boy occupied the doorway, chattering angrily. Langy grabbed the backpack, more forcibly than Haley thought was prudent, and exited into the dark.

Crowds of other workers had already assembled on their patios when Haley left the room, and the presence of other worried people consoled her. They whispered and smoked and stared as Langy, still in his outfit, moved like a blue blaze across the grassy compound to another room. A man in a dress carrying a bomb—this would never end up in her story. He
knocked on another door and the concierge, in a white T-shirt and hospital pants, answered, picking his teeth. This is how they truly were. Haley realized that she'd been looking at masks, seeing only docile supplication, from the other side of the reception desk. An argument grew between them, the boy shouting too, until the concierge spied Haley.

“What is happening?” Haley asked, trying to make her authoritative tone outdo her fear. He must know that, as a Westerner, she had access to news agencies, enterprises of scrutiny, an embassy window with a person who cared. Langy and the boy set the bag on the patio and backed away.

“The boy finds this,” the concierge said.

“Where? Here? Tell me. In the hotel?”

The concierge did not answer, and instead held his hands in a prayer shape against his lips and tapped his fingers.

“It's a bomb, isn't it?” she said. She thought, So they do go in runs. “Tell me.”

“Yes. He finds it in the lobby.”

“You need to call the police.”

The concierge took in the rows of workers watching her on their patios and balconies. His eyes seemed to sweep over the expanse of the apartments, not suspiciously but with a hard, unhurried sadness. She'd seen the same expression in the faces of families back in Chicago when she told them their plots of gardens would be cemented over for buildings, for development. The look of a bitter ending. Then it occurred to Haley: when the news broke, when she told someone that a bomb had been found here, the resort would suffer, their jobs
would evaporate, detonation or not. This place would be over and she would be responsible for it. In an instant, the consequences tunneled out and away from her. Forget the ring. She and Mac would leave tomorrow on the first plane, back to what was theirs.

“Please go,” the concierge said, and waved her off.

She walked through the gate and back into the foyer, then out to the beach, where a smaller, hardier circle of newlyweds continued to smoke. She folded her pants and blouse and walked into the calm lagoon. Nothing could hurt her out here. She swam out to the raft and lifted herself up.

The visiting yacht was nearby, and she could make out the bodies at the railing. They laughed at each other in a foreign language and leapt into the water. A woman in heels climbed down a rope ladder and fell. They were drunk, senseless, swimming at the boat's waterline, champagne flutes held in the air. Soon they would all know better.

Leah,

I forgot to tell you about the gravity + how I felt it! When we took the van this afternoon, just you + me, the whole way I heard a hum, like when you walk into the house + sense a television is on. Like electricity at the fringes. My container lifted, then pulled against the seat belt. It was the ship, at last, calling me, readying me for the jump. I wanted so badly to tell you, but wanting is a feeling, the hardest one to subtract. I looked up, but there were just clouds, dumb earth weather. The ship was invisible, just like Bo explained, tucked somewhere, in the tail of the comet.

Science proves there are all kinds of gravities. Moon ache makes tides. Even you, Leah, pull me. In two days, when the comet comes closest, we'll get on the scales + they'll say zero.

We drove to the university to post the Final Offer + it was strange because we saw brush fires in the foothills near the freeway. They made such a bright yellow hem in the hillside. I think California is going to die right after we do. Gray smoke drifted in the sky, the sun on a dimmer. As I drove, I stared
into the sun, dared it to blind me, but it didn't so I won. When the snowflakes of ash flurried around the van, you weren't scared because you had your Bible in your lap, the one that you highlighted so much in yellow + orange + green marker that it looked like the flag of some weird African country. You tucked your feet underneath you, pushed your glasses up + read from the unboring part. “I will show wonders in Heaven above + earth beneath, blood + fire + vapor of smoke,” you said, “The Sun shall be turned into darkness + the moon into blood.” It was as if the Bible were a movie that we were watching + also living in, like costars!

The sky was scrubbed clean over the campus, perched on the coast like it is. I parked in the lot at the student center + paid the parking meter, even though soon there will be galaxies between us + our parking tickets. Inside the center, I was surprised at how young the other containers were, younger than us even, coral-pink + bronze, like they'd been buffed + waxed + stored in a garage every night. I guess I've gotten used to being surrounded by later models, like Old Margaret + Darwin + Bo. The students stared at us in our black turtlenecks. This made you anxious so I stared back at them until their eye machines looked elsewhere. I wanted to shout,
Don't you know what's happening? This planet is about to get recycled!!!!!!!
But I didn't. It would take way too long to explain. Besides, we didn't bring the overhead projector.

Instead, I took out Bo's flyer + pinned it to a bulletin board that was quilted with countless notices of human irrelevancy. “THIS IS OUR
FINAL
OFFER,” the flyer read, in Bo's hand
writing. “Civilization is about to be Spaced Under. UFOs will take us to the next level. Join us!”

You looked at all the flyers on the board + I asked what you were thinking + you said “nothing” + I said if you were having thoughts you needed to tell me, that that's what it meant to have a check partner.

“They have ballroom dancing on Thursday nights,” you said.

Leah, you are so next level!

I remember how we found you street-side in Salt Lake City, with your retriever Rocket + your blond hair caked into rope. (It looks so much better short!) You were a seeker, your backpack crammed with books from every religion. You skimmed the
I Ching
+ cast coins right there on the sidewalk, onto the front of your skirt. It took me an hour to build up the velocity to enter your atmosphere. Your facepart was so smooth + new. A hoop pierced your eyebrow. The two tiny bites into the skin looked maybe infected but still adorable.

I handed you our card.

Do you want to know what happens next? Come to a Total Overcomers Anonymous Meeting.

You cleaned a fingernail with the corner. “What happens next is you buy me lunch,” you said + I took you to burgers. You left Rocket outside, tied to a banister with twine. You tried not to show your hunger, but your arm ringed the plate the way a gorilla would if a gorilla ate off a plate. I fell so hard for you, my knee bouncing under the table, even though I knew that was wrong + emotions add weight to our containers. You wouldn't
tell me about your life but now I know all about your life. Your Mormon family, your brother who went AWOL on his mission trip in Brazil + your mother who had an affair + how everything splintered from there. I couldn't wait to rescue you, to give you shelter + true family. I know it was awful when Bo made you leave Rocket behind but that was a necessary shedding. Don't tell me feelings are hard to give up! The most difficult thing I've ever done was lie with you on that mattress + not touch because Bo wanted us to “learn to be neutral.” While we lay there, every religion moved through me. If these letters can prove anything to you it's that I've never been neutral.

At the student center, a male vessel got up from the entrance desk + approached us. “Excuse me,” he said. “Are you students? Because you need to be a student here to post flyers.” His vessel featured a brown ponytail + flip-flops + a T-shirt that said “Alpha Chi or Die,” which made me think that maybe he knew something we didn't. A can of soda rose to his mouthpart.

“This is very important for students to know,” I explained.

“Well, there are rules and I'm the rule guy,” he said. “Can I see some ID?”

“Don't you want to hear about the Final Offer?” I said.

“This UFO
caca
?” he said + ripped down the flyer + crumpled it. That was when I realized we were talking to a Luciferian! Bo has told us so much about them, their ways of scrambling our message, that I expected his eyes to blaze + his lips to peel + show fangs. I really wanted to grab your container, Leah, + run.

“That was totally unnecessary,” I said.

The Luciferian belched + his eye machines looked from me back to you. “And what's up with the twinky turtleneck get-up?” Then, to himself, he muttered, “California, land of the freaks.”

“This entire world will end in two days,” you said + it was beautiful.

Back in the van, we put our tuning forks to our heads + asked the Next Level what to do + I heard, “Return to headquarters.” “Right now?” I said into the universe, but silently. “Can't I spend more time with Leah?” Then I swiveled my eye machines + saw you looking into the minivan beside us in the parking lot. The sliding door was open + those two twin babies, new vessels, fresh from the manufacturer, blinked in the backseat. Their mother bent over them + you waved to them in a tiny way. But the mother saw you + swung the sliding door shut.

“Finish your work,” the Next Level returned, so I drove. According to my stopwatch, it had been one hundred + twenty minutes since we had launched from Rancho Santa Fe + we still hadn't picked up the fuel for the space jump. At the Ralphs, a cashier vessel with a bumpy facepart scanned our big jars of applesauce + cases of pudding + jugs of vodka. He said, “Looks like a party—can I come?”

I wanted to say,
The invitations were given out two thousand years ago!

“The invitations were given out two thousand years ago!” I said.

“No need to shout, dude,” he said.

“I wasn't shouting,” I said.

“Lady,” the cashier vessel asked you, “this guy doesn't have you against your will or anything, does he?”

You smiled + bagged.

But in the car, I could tell something was wrong. In the passenger seat, you watched the brush fires + hugged your legs to your chest. You left the Bible on the floor. I didn't say anything because I didn't want to bang your frequency. In the driveway, I parked + neither of us moved.

“Michael, do you ever have doubts?” you said softly to the dashboard. This close, your facepart was a sun that I couldn't look into.

“Doubts?” I said.

“Doubts about the Gate,” you said. “About us going.”

Leah: we all have spirits—memories + hopes + addictions + behaviors rattling around in our containers like sneakers in a dryer. They are the additions + we need to subtract them + get empty. My Spirit List is long: you, mainly, then my father then Boulder Colorado + my old programming job . . . These spirits make the doubts about the Gate + doubts are how the Luciferians win. They'll tether you here to the earth to endure the recycling.
To fit through the window in the sky
, Bo teaches,
you have to let go of everything that you are carrying.
Nobody said it would be easy to get the scales to zero.

“Spirits make doubts—” I said, but you said, “Never mind,” + suddenly you were light years from me.

Inside the mansion, you walked straight to the Spirit
Room to decontaminate, which I thought was a good idea. We needed time apart. I took the grocery bags to the kitchen + hovered in front of the computers, each one blinking, “Red alert! Hale-Bopp is coming!” in an important font. I could hear Brian in the den recording his testimony for the video camera. Did you read his screenplay
Beyond Human
, which will change the world after we leave? It is 422 pages about Bo's emergency landing on the planet, how the away team created Jesus + the other vessels + what happens after the long war of earth living is finally over. It's so big Brian bound it with six-inch screws. Brian told me he came from Portland, where he made industrial films until his wife was mauled in a zoo-related thing. From the den, I heard him say to the camera, “Death is just the twist on page twenty-seven.”

Bo was there in the kitchen, on a stool at the countertop, crushing our pills. I'm always honored to be alone in his orbit. It's selfish, I know—I get all his gravity that way. His silver hair bristled like a boot brush. I sometimes wonder what his face would look like if you smoothed out all the wrinkles—would it be the size of a tablecloth? Last month, Old Margaret whispered to me that Bo's vessel, the one he's been piloting for sixty-six years, is collapsing from cancer, which is why we have to leave now, while he's still strong enough to lead us through the jump.

When Bo saw me, he smiled. Then he said what he always says: “Such a beautiful container.” Bo likes me more than the others, I think, because most of us have old containers or fat ones like Darwin's + Bo prefers the look of newer ones. I
decided this was the time to ask my big question: could I share a bunk with you in the laundry room for the departure? “Yes” would mean you + I would climb the sky together. I was so nervous I was vibrating.

But Bo's face fell.

“Michael, your attachment to Leah is getting worse,” he said. “I'm very disappointed.” It was as if he'd taken a hammer to my container + pounded. “My answer is no.”

I went to the laundry room + collapsed on my bunk, pulling big Gs of grief. I cried into my pillowcase for eight minutes + twenty-five seconds. I turned on the dryers to cover my noise. I don't want to be alone, not for now, not for as long as it will take to traverse the universe. Leah, am I with you in the Spirit Room? Are you feeling the same? Are you feeling at all?

When I was done leaking, I put the pillowcase in the washing machine with two cups of bleach. I got it clean.

Leah,

I woke up this morning + decided that I would not feel anything for you. When we all came together at 3 a.m. for our vitamins, I took off my glasses so I didn't see you + swallowed in the dark. During brain exercises, from 8:36 a.m. to 10:36 a.m., I finished my crosswords without thinking about you once. I wrote our report about the human encounters from yesterday + didn't mention your questions or your doubts. At 10:54 a.m., I drank my protein formula + ate a cinnamon roll + more vitamins but I didn't look at your vitamin cup.

Then the doorbell rang + silence came. Darwin rushed into the den + said, “Someone's at the front.”

A visitor! I got so excited because I thought it might be Jesus. Bo says that Jesus, the Total Overcomer, might surprise us one day but that he won't look like Jesus. He'll have a sheer face + black eyes + a giant head to hold all available knowledge. I thought of the last visitors we had. Remember those two Mormon missionaries? In their starched shirts + cowlicks, they asked Bo if he wanted to go to Heaven. When they saw all of us in our turtlenecks together, they thought it was a family reunion. “We're going to Heaven,” Bo told them. “We're going to get there before you.” We clapped in unison + the boys got scared like we were vampires + they ran away. I know you didn't like seeing them. You were thinking of your family back in Salt Lake + older brother, weren't you? Did he look like those two? Don't they all look the same?

Then I realized I was thinking of you again. I stopped myself by climbing the main stairs to see out the cathedral window over the door. I don't know why Bo let that one be the only window that is not covered with tinfoil. I think because it was too hard to put the tinfoil there.

Through the window, I saw an older female container chewing the pad of her thumb. Under her other arm she carried a cake on a plastic tray. She had long black hair + jeans + a winter coat, but there's no winter in San Diego so then I knew she came from elsewhere. Bo never mentioned a winter coat on Jesus.

“May I help you?” Bo asked when he opened the door. He was so thin now his white turtleneck hung loose on his vessel.

“I'm here to speak to my daughter,” she said. “Her name is Leah Shearling.”

“You daughter isn't here,” Bo said calmly.

“How do you know?”

“There are no daughters here,” Bo answered. “Only Overcomers.”

She didn't know what to say to that! But then your mother peered inside, at all of us gathered in the foyer in the dark. It must be wonderful to see thirty-nine people with the same haircut + clothing, like the biggest math team that ever was.

“Leah, are you in there?” she called out.

I couldn't help it, but I looked at you, at the threshold to the living room. + the woman saw me look + followed my eye machines to you. You didn't make any expression go on your facepart.