The Predicteds (20 page)

“Sorry,” Brooklyn says snidely, “I didn't realize you two were the best of friends. But it figures, Daphne, what with you being the biggest Lifer lover here.”

Lifer lover
. It's a phrase I keep hearing at QH. It's not even clever, really. But people love to say it, even if it's not true. Anyone who does anything that could be considered dumb, lame, silly, or even just mundane is a Lifer lover. And anyone who goes near the Zoo—for any reason except to gawk at the predicteds—is a Lifer lover too.

“Are we going to have to go to school with Lifers next year?” Ruth wants to know, her eager eyes peering out from under her baseball cap.

“That remains to be seen, dude,” Mr. Oakes replies.

“I think we should put them in their own schools,” says Dizzy. We haven't spoken to each other since yesterday at the baseball diamonds. She sits with Brooklyn now, passing notes and pausing occasionally to listen to Mr. Oakes.

“The school board is considering options,” Mr. Oakes tells us.

“Well, personally,” Brooklyn announces in her pageant voice, “I think we should lock all of the predicteds away someplace and let them kill each other.” She flips her hair over her shoulder and smiles at Mr. Oakes like he's a guest pageant judge. “But remember, we need to hate the sin, not the sinner. Let's all remember that.”

I surprise even myself when I feel my vocal cords begin to vibrate. It takes me a second to realize that the words I'm hearing are coming from my mouth. “You're so fake. You don't care about anybody. You just want to gossip.” I raise my voice, until my own head hurts from the screech that appears to be emanating directly from me. Mr. Oakes takes a step backward and perches on the edge of his desk, as if he might slide behind it and hide at a moment's notice. I go on, “You don't know the first thing about how it feels to love someone who everyone else has turned against. You don't know. All you know about is yourself and your pageants.” I turn to the rest of the class. “PROFILE obviously doesn't work, or it would know that Brooklyn here is a stupid, conceited, selfish little bitch.”

The room is dead silent. When even Mr. Oakes can't decide what to say, I grab my backpack and leave. I can hear the flip-flop of my shoes all the way to the door. I look at Dizzy before I leave. She just shakes her head, as if to say,
Now you've done it.

***

Melissa has been in bed for hours already, but I haven't come even close to falling asleep. I grab the phone after only half a ring.

“Hello?”

“Hello,” he says formally, grimly.

“Hi,” I reply, my voice cracking on the single syllable. I'm surprised to hear Jesse's voice.

We are silent for twenty-three seconds. I count the ticks coming from my watch on the bedside table. “You're still mad at me,” I finally say.

“No,” he says. “I'm just—” No words adequately finish the sentence, apparently, so he just stops. “I'm sorry about sending you that email message.”

“I understand. But, please, Jesse, listen. I had to ask you those questions. I have to know—”

He cuts me off. “Let's not start this conversation again.” He's right. There's nothing more I can say. “I'm calling because I need to ask you a favor,” he says.

“Of course.”

“I'm not coming back to Quiet. Maybe not ever. I don't know. I'm with my mom right now in Utah. The thing is, I'm worried about January.”

“Oh,” I say. Of course he's worried about January.

“With all this crazy predicted stuff going on, January is going to have an even harder time. I need to know someone is looking out for her.”

“Of course,” I repeat.

“Daphne, I need you to promise that you'll make sure nothing bad happens to her. She needs a friend, and I don't know of anyone else who I can trust to be there for her. Can you do that?”

“One guardian angel coming right up.” I laugh awkwardly. Jesse doesn't laugh. “Yes,” I say seriously, “I'll look out for her, but not because of you. I'll do it because she needs a friend.”

“Thank you,” he says.

I hold the phone to my ear long after the line is dead.

It bothers me that they can use public restrooms. We don't feel safe anymore. If we can't get rid of them, can't we make the predicteds use separate public toilets? It's a matter of public health.

—Marianna Bass, mother of Brooklyn Bass, in a letter to the editor of the
Quiet Daily News

Melissa and I arrive at the theme park, Frontier City, in Oklahoma City just as it opens. I refused to take the bus with everyone else.

It's our class trip, an annual tradition at Quiet High for the junior class to celebrate the end of the year at a stinky amusement park—a day complete with bagged lunches from the cafeteria and parent chaperones. “Surprise!” Melissa had said with real glee when she told me last night that she had volunteered to chaperone the trip.

“But I'm not going,” I told her. We'd argued for about ten minutes, and then I just gave up. Melissa always wins.

This morning in the car, she'd used her disappointed voice to say, “You've always wanted me to get involved at your school, right?”

Yeah, when I was
eight
. I don't have the heart to tell her this. Riding roller coasters with your mom while she tells Bucky Roy not to spit at the top seems kind of mortifying now. And pointless.

“Yes,” I had said to her with forced enthusiasm. “This is great, Melissa. Thank you.” If she wasn't listening closely, I might actually have sounded sincere.

I step into the park with trepidation. It's hard to think about roller coasters and fried cheese curds when all I can focus on is Jesse. And about the fact that I'm now a total outcast at school. After the geometry incident, I've spent the last week at school feeling like nerdy Ronald Miller near the end of that old '80s movie,
Can't Buy Me Love
. Invisible was better.

On Wednesday in geometry—the first day back after my big blowup—Brooklyn had shoved me when I walked through the door. She literally pushed me! And so hard that I ran into the corner of the front table and now have a huge bruise on my leg. For someone so little, she's powerful. It didn't occur to me to push back. The next day, I walked by the water fountain where Brooklyn and some of her pageant friends were taking turns filling water bottles. When I went past, they threw water on me. I was soaked—my hair, my T-shirt, even my shoes. Dizzy was with them, and while she didn't laugh along with them, she turned her back on me.

“Traitor,” Brooklyn hissed at me.

“Lifer lover,” the other girls chorused.

I want to tell everyone that I'm not a Lifer lover. I let Jesse go. I refused to believe him. To believe
in
him. I can't stop thinking about how hurt he looked that day at the lake. How can I possibly ask for his forgiveness? How can I possibly ask him to believe that I am still me, that I am still a good person, when I couldn't do that for him?

I called him this morning before we left for the park. No answer—just his voice mail, the prerecorded voice of that ubiquitous, electronic phone lady. Not even his own voice. I wanted to hear it one last time.

“This place is so…whimsical,” Melissa says after we show our special Quiet High tickets at the park gates.

I roll my eyes at her. “Just say it,” I tell her. “It's a capitalist nightmare, a money trap in the guise of amusement.”

Melissa pats my back, and whispers in my ear. “Try to have a good time, Daph. Try to forget for at least a few hours, okay?” This advice is very unlike Melissa. It sort of makes me want to look closer to see if this is some Melissa imposter, some pod person who volunteered to chaperone a school event and who encourages her daughter to forget about an issue of social justice—the unfair treatment of predicteds!

It's a bright Friday morning with only two weeks of school left, the briefest hint of summer freedom already in the air. The month of May is always better than real summer, because when the day is done, when the sun sets, there will still be as many summer days left as there were in the morning.

“Why don't you just make sure that nobody gets heatstroke?” Brooklyn's mom—another chaperone—tells Melissa. “You can be the keeper of the water.”

“The keeper of the water?” Melissa asks skeptically.

Mr. Oakes comes from around the back of the cotton candy stand, pushing cartons of bottled water on a small cart. He pushes the cart in front of Melissa, and then says, “Go have fun, Daphne. Everybody is heading for the rides.”

We all look down the midway where QHers—and all the kids from any number of high schools around central Oklahoma on class trips—are standing patiently in line to go on rides that look old and rusty to me. I hear the roller coaster creaking above us. “I think I'll just give the keeper of the water a hand.”

After we grow bored of sitting on benches with the water cart, Melissa insists that we dress up in old-time clothes and have our picture taken at one of the old shops. The black-and-white picture is grainy. Melissa is faking a smile, the right and left sides of her mouth forced up in a painful-looking way. I stare grimly at the camera, my eyes diverted slightly to the left, which makes it appear that I'm watching something in the background. I am not. I am just letting my eyes drift. My hair is an anachronism—no frontier woman would have my updated Louise Brooks do. I feel like an imposter. Melissa manages to pull off nineteenth-century homesteader with grace.

I carry the picture in the small backpack Melissa brought for us to carry our things. In the bag are the necessities: sunscreen, sunglasses, water bottles, a sweatshirt for later, and a cell phone, a gift Melissa gave me this weekend—it's something she knows I've wanted. The irony is that I haven't used it yet. Nobody wants to talk to me.

Melissa gets sick on rides, so while she sits with the water—handing out bottles to thirsty students and then giving them a lecture on the importance of recycling plastic—I ride alone. I'm paired up on the roller coaster with a chubby girl from Ardmore who cries all the way through the ride. I throw my hands in the air for the first time ever on a roller coaster. Who cares if I fall out? What will it matter if the stupid car derails and sends us all pouring out of the little containers onto the concrete of I-35?

At lunchtime, QHers head for the picnic tables by the water park. Melissa and I sit by ourselves. I eat corn dog bites while Melissa nibbles at her apple. I feel way too old to be here on a class trip with Melissa as a chaperone. She keeps trying to find out what's wrong.

“Why aren't you hanging out with your friends?” She's already asked about ten times now—not just today, but every day since I opened my big mouth in geometry and rendered myself outcast of the century.

“Because I don't have any,” I tell her.

“What about silly Dizzy?”

“No, we aren't friends anymore.”

“Come on, Daphne. Tell me what's wrong.”

I stuff enough corn dog bites in my mouth that I am physically unable to squeeze out words. I shake my head.

Melissa sighs and takes a big bite out of her browning apple. “Suit yourself,” she says, but I know that she is frustrated by the way she wrinkles her nose at me. “Do you want cotton candy?” she asks three seconds later.

I've never even tasted cotton candy—how would I know if I want it? It's just like Melissa to skip a key part of my childhood and then try to make up for it ten years too late. Cotton candy can't possibly taste as good now as it would have then.

We haven't talked about Jesse—not since I told Melissa that he left Quiet and moved to live with his mother. She's had the good sense not to ask me about him. It's a subject that's hard to talk about. Naturally, she picks today—when most of QH is swarming around us—to ask the money question: “Do you love him?”

I'm not sure what to say. I fill my mouth again, feeling sick as the breaded, deep-fried hot dog touches the roof of my mouth. I chew and then answer with a question of my own. “Aren't you concerned about the fact that Jesse is predicted? I mean, maybe he didn't attack January, but according to PROFILE, he will. Eventually, he will do something like that. Would you let your own daughter near that kind of person?”

Melissa adjusts her sunglasses and looks up at the rickety roller coaster above us. “Daph, I'm always concerned about you and your safety. And I would never want you to be with someone who could—or would—hurt you. But let me ask you
another
question now.” I nod. “Did Jesse ever do anything to make you think he's capable of violence?”

I shake my head.

“Did he ever give you a reason not to trust him?”

I can't answer that. Can I trust him? I shrug my shoulders.

“That's all you can really know about a person.”

“But what about the PROFILE results? We know that about a lot of people.”

Melissa reaches across the table and grabs my hand. I don't even look around me to see if anyone is watching. “PROFILE might tell us what people are capable of, but only people can tell us what they'll do. Don't let the predicted hysteria fool you, Daphne. People can change.”

“But you told me before that PROFILE doesn't lie, that it actually works. Are you saying you were wrong?”

“I don't know,” she says after a long pause. “I'm just not sure of anything anymore.” This is so unlike Melissa that I feel even more uneasy than I did before.

She sees the tears in the corners of my eyes. “Hey,” she says, giving me a fake punch in the arm, “Go ride the Steel Lasso.” She tips an imaginary cowboy hat. “I'll guard the water.”

I pick up all of our lunch garbage, including Melissa's apple core, and throw it in the trash can next to us. I decide to stand in line for the Mindbender instead—the scariest ride I've ever seen. I am surprised to find myself next to Sam Cameron in the line, sans Dizzy and company. We don't talk, but we wordlessly step into the little car together. Sam keeps his eyes closed throughout the whole ride. I watch him closely as we go up and down and swing back and forth and upside down like a whacked-out pendulum. He's green when we finally set foot back on level ground.

“Hi,” he says after we get off the ride.

“Hi,” I answer. We part ways without speaking. So this is what it's going to be like for me from now on: visible, but just barely.

After the ride, I feel the greasy blob of corn dog bites moving around in my stomach. I head for the bathroom, hoping that I won't throw up on the midway.

The restroom line stretches outside, and I take my place behind all the girls who have to pee so badly that they hop from foot to foot. All the anxiety about holding it is making my bladder shudder. I find myself shifting my weight, keeping it all in.

After standing in line for a few minutes, my stomach settles down. I'm not going to barf, after all. This is a disappointing development. Right now, I can't think of anything better than expelling all those mini–corn dogs. Instead, I'm forced to keep them—punishment for my own gluttony. The long hallway is cool and dark, and I lean against the dirty wall and let the relief of the cold surface sink inside me. I move with the line, shuffling along with everyone else, listening to the chorus of flushes echo around me. When I turn behind me, I recognize Kelly Payne. She half-smiles at me. I give her a little wave.

“Shhh,” she says. “I'm not supposed to be here.”

I nod. I remember Mrs. Temple's announcement: “Due to recent changes in school protocol, predicteds will not be allowed on the junior class trip.” Something about legal liability and logistical problems. Some bullshit.

“I'm here with Nate,” she tells me. I wonder how she thinks she's going to remain unseen, but I don't ask. “We're making a statement,” she says. “Kind of like a protest.” I nod.

We stand silently, and I let my eyes flutter closed for a second or two. When we round the corner, I open them and see three girls standing at the sinks. They are finger-combing their hair and then messing it up again. They all make faces at their reflections. They block the best sinks, the ones closest to the dryers. Everyone else must fight for the two remaining sinks.

I stare at the three reflections—they look different somehow, even though I just saw them all yesterday. Cuteny's hair is pulled into a very high ponytail. Brooklyn's face is plastered in makeup. Dizzy's tube top is the size of a washcloth. She is smacking her lips at herself in the mirror. I eavesdrop.

Dizzy: “This place is lame.”

Brooklyn: “Very.”

Cuteny: “Why did we come here again?”

Dizzy: “Boys.”

Brooklyn: “Shut up. You have a boyfriend already.”

Dizzy: “Oh, yeah.”

The line for the toilets moves forward. The next open stall is mine. If I move quickly, head down, they will never notice me. I will leave the bathroom, find Melissa, and tell her I'm done with amusement parks and class trips for today. For forever. We will go home. She can return to the garage, where she wants to be anyway. I can listen to the clock tick or count the number of specks in the speckled kitchen wallpaper. The usual.

That's what might've happened. Instead, a shy girl from my English class who sketches horses on her binder covers steps out of line, stands by Brooklyn at the sink, and hurls with ferocious intensity. Vomit hits the floor very near Brooklyn's shoes—horrific, silver wedge sandals. Brooklyn shrieks, the girls start gagging, Cuteny stifles a laugh, and Dizzy turns the same green as her skimpy tube top. Brooklyn must step over the pile of puke. Everyone gags. We all have to turn away. I feel sorry for the girl. I vividly recall being in her position that day in chemistry.

Some girl with a yellow visor: “Somebody needs to clean this up.”

Brooklyn: “Duh. Of course it needs to be cleaned up. She could've gotten that on me! That's so unsanitary!”

An argument begins about what's sanitary and what's not.