Women in Deep Time (4 page)

Reena was friendly and supportive, but still distant.

As Letitia walked up the stairs, across the porch into the door of their home,
setting her keyboard down by the closet, she saw the edge of a news broadcast in the living room. Nobody was watching; she surmised everybody was in the kitchen.

From this angle, the announcer appeared translucent and blue, ghostly. As Letitia walked around to the premium angle, the announcer solidified, a virtual goddess of Asian-negroid features with high cheekbones, straight golden hair and copperbronze skin. Letitia didn’t care what she looked like; what she was saying had attracted her attention.

“—revelations made today that as many as one-fourth of all PPCs inceived between sixteen and seventeen years ago may be possessors of a defective chromosome sequence known as T56-WA 5659. Originally part of an intelligence enhancement macrobox used in ramping creativity and mathematical ability, T56-WA 5659 was refined and made a standard option in virtually all pre-planned children. The effects of this defective sequence are not yet known, but at least twenty children in our city have already died. They all suffered from initial symptoms similar to grand mal epilepsy. Nationwide casualties are as yet unknown. The Rifkin Society is charging government regulatory agencies with a wholesale coverup.

“The Parental Pre-Natal Design Administration has advised parents of PPC children with this incept to immediately contact your medicals and design specialists for advice and treatment. Younger children may be eligible to receive wholebody retroviral therapy. For more detailed information, please refer to our LitVid on-line at this moment, and call—”

Letitia turned and saw her mother watching with a kind of grim satisfaction. When she noticed her daughter’s shocked expression, she suddenly appeared sad. “How unfortunate,” she said. “I wonder how far it will go.”

Letitia did not eat much dinner. Nor did she sleep more than a couple of hours that night. The weekend seemed to stretch on forever.

Leroux compared the laserfoam sculptures to her face, turning her chin this way and that with gentle hands before the green room mirror. As Leroux worked to test the various molds on Letitia, humming softly to himself, the rest of the drama group rehearsed a scene that did not require her presence. When they were done, Reena walked into the green room and stood behind them, watching. Letitia smiled stiffly through the hastily applied sheets and mounds of skinlike plastic.

“You’re going to look great,” Reena said.

“I’m going to look
old,”
Letitia said, trying for a joke.

“I hope you aren’t worried about that,” Reena said. “Nobody cares, really. They all like you. Even Edna.”

“I’m not worried,” Letitia said.

Leroux pulled off the pieces and laid them carefully in a box. “Just about got it,” he said. “I’m getting so good I could even make
Reena
look old if she’d let me.”

Letitia considered for a moment. The implication, rather than the meaning, was embarrassingly obvious. Reena blushed and stared angrily at Leroux. Leroux caught her stare, looked between them, and said, “Well, I could.” Reena could not argue without sinking them all deeper. Letitia blinked, then decided to let them off this particular hook. “She wouldn’t look like a grandmother, though. I’ll be a much better old lady.”

“Of course,” Leroux said, picking up his box and the sculptures. He walked to the door, a mad headsman. “Like your great-grandmother.”

For a long silent moment, Reena and Letitia faced each other alone in the green room. The old incandescent makeup lights glared around the cracked mirror, casting a pearly glow on the white walls behind them. “You’re a good actress,” Reena said. “It really doesn’t matter what you look like.”

“Thank you.”

“Sometimes I wished I looked like somebody in my family,” Reena said.

Without thinking, Letitia said, “But you’re beautiful.” And she meant it. Reena
was
beautiful; with her Levantine darkness and long black hair, small sharp chin, large hazelcolored almond eyes and thin, ever-so-slightly bowed nose, she was simply lovely, with the kind of face and bearing and intelligence that two or three generations before would have moved her into entertainment, or pushed her into the social circles of the rich and famous. Behind the physical beauty was a sparkle of reserved wit, and something gentle. PPCs were healthier, felt better, and their minds, on the average, were more subtle, more balanced. Letitia did not feel inferior, however; not this time.

Something magic touched them. The previous awkwardness, and her deft destruction of that awkwardness, had moved them into a period of charmed conversation. Neither could offend the other; without words, that was a given.

“My parents are beautiful, too. I’m second generation,” Reena said.

“Why would you want to look any different?”

“I don’t, I suppose. I’m happy with the way I look. But I don’t look much like my mother or my father. Oh, color, hair, eyes, that sort of thing…Still, my mother wasn’t happy with her own face. She didn’t get along well with my grandmother…She blamed her for not matching her face with her personality.” Reena smiled. “It’s all rather silly.”

“Some people are never happy,” Letitia observed.

Reena stepped forward and leaned over slightly to face

Letitia’s mirror image. “How do you feel, looking like your grandmother?”

Letitia bit her lip. “Until you asked me to join, I don’t think I ever knew.” she told about her mother giving her the album, and looking at herself in the mirror—though she did not describe being naked—and comparing herself with the old pictures.

“I think that’s called an epiphany,” Reena said. “It must have been nice. I’m glad I asked you, then, even if I was stupid.”

“Were you…” Letitia paused. The period of charm was fading, regrettably; she did not know whether this question would be taken as she meant it. “Did you ask me to give me a chance to stop being so silly and stand-offish?”

“No,” Reena said steadily. “I asked you because we needed an old lady.”

Looking at each other, they laughed suddenly, and the charmed moment was gone, replaced by something steadier and longer-lasting: friendship. Letitia took Reena’s hand and pressed it. “Thank you,” she said.

“You’re welcome.” Then, with hardly a pause, Reena said, “At least you don’t have to worry.”

Letitia stared up at her, mouth open, eyes searching.

“Got to go home now,” Reena said. She squeezed Letitia’s shoulder with more than gentle strength, revealing a physical anger or jealousy that ran counter to all they had said and done thus far. She turned and walked through the green room door, leaving
Letitia alone to pick off a few scraps of latex and adhesive.

The disaster grew. Letitia listened to the news in her room late that night, whispers in her ear, projected ghosts of newscasters and doctors and scientists dancing before her eyes, telling her things she did not really understand, could only feel.

A monster walked through her generation, but it would not touch her.

Going to school on Monday, she saw students clustered in hallways before the bell, somber, talking in low voices, glancing at her as she passed. In her second period class, she learned from overheard conversation that Leroux had died during the weekend. “He was superwhiz,” a tall, athletic girl told her neighbor. “They don’t die, usually, they just blitz. But he died.”

Letitia retreated to the old lavatory at the beginning of lunch break, found it empty, but did not stare into the mirror. She knew what she looked like and accepted it.

What she found difficult to accept was a new feeling inside her. The young Letitia was gone. She could not live on a battlefield and remain a child. She thought about slender, elfin Leroux, carrying her heads under his arms, touching her face with gentle, professional admiration. Strong, cool fingers. Her eyes filled but the tears would not fall, and she went to lunch empty, fearful, confused.

She did not apply for counseling, however. This was something she had to face on her own.

Nothing much happened the next few days. The rehearsals went smoothly in the evenings as the date of the play approached. She learned her lines easily enough. Her role had a sadness that matched her mood. On Wednesday evening, after rehearsal, she joined Reena and Fayette at a supermarket sandwich stand near the school. Letitia did not tell her parents she would be late; she felt the need to not be responsible to anybody but her immediate peers. Jane would be upset, she knew, but not for long; this was a
necessity.

Neither Reena nor Fayette mentioned the troubles directly. They were fairylike in their gaiety. They kidded Letitia about having to do without makeup now, and it seemed funny, despite their hidden grief. They ate sandwiches and drank fruit sodas and talked about what they would be when they grew up.

“Things didn’t used to be so easy,” Fayette said. “Kids didn’t have so many options. Schools weren’t very efficient at training for the real world; they were academic.”

“Learning was slower,” Letitia said.

“So were the kids,” Reena said, tossing off an irresponsible grin.

“I resent that,” Letitia said. Then, together, they all said,
“I don’t deny it, I just resent it!”
Their laughter caught the attention of an older couple sitting in a corner. Even if the man and woman were not angry, Letitia wanted them to be, and she bowed her head down, giggling into her straw, snucking bubbles up her nose and choking. Reena made a disapproving face and Fayette covered his mouth, snorting with laughter.

“You could paste rubber all over your face,” Fayette suggested.

“I’d look like Frankenstein’s monster, not an old woman,” Letitia said.

“So what’s the difference?” Reena said.

“Really, you guys,” Letitia said. “You’re acting your age.”

“Don’t have to act,” Fayette said. “Just
be.”

“I wish we could act our age,” Reena said.

Not once did they mention Leroux, but it was as if he sat beside them the whole
time, sharing their levity.

It was the closest thing to a wake they could have.

“Have you gone to see your designer, your medical?” Letitia asked Reena behind the stage curtains. The lights were off. Student stagehands moved muslin walls on dollies. Fresh paint smells filled the air.

“No,” Reena said. “I’m not worried. I have a different incept.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “It’s okay. If there was any problem, I wouldn’t be here. Don’t worry.” And nothing more was said.

The night of dress rehearsal came. Letitia put on her own makeup, drawing pencil lines and applying color and shadow; she had practiced and found herself reasonably adept at aging. With her great-grandmother’s photograph before her, she mimicked the jowls she would have in her later years, drew laugh lines around her lips, and completed the effect with a smelly old gray wig dug out of a prop box.

The actors gathered for a prerehearsal inspection by Miss Darcy. They seemed quite adult now, dressed in their period costumes, tall and handsome. Letitia didn’t mind standing out. Being an old woman gave her special status.

“This time, just relax, do it smooth,” said Miss Darcy. “Everybody expects you to flub your lines, so you’ll probably do them all perfectly. We’ll have an audience, but they’re here to forgive our mistakes, not laugh at them. This one,” Miss Darcy said, pausing, “is for Mr. Leroux.”

They all nodded solemnly.

“Tomorrow, when we put on the first show, that’s going to be for you.”

They took their places in the wings. Letitia stood behind Reena, who would be first on stage. Reena shot her a quick smile, nervous.

“How’s your stomach?” she whispered.

“Where’s the bag?” Letitia asked, pretending to gag herself with a finger.

“TB,” Reena accused lightly

“RC,” Letitia replied. They shook hands firmly.

The curtain went up. The auditorium was half filled with parents and friends and relatives. Letitia’ s parents were out there. The darkness beyond the stagelights seemed so profound it should have been filled with stars and nebulae. Would her small voice reach that far?

The recorded music before the first act came to its quiet end. Reena made a move to go on stage, then stopped. Letitia nudged her. “Come on.”

Reena pivoted to look at her, face cocked to one side, and Letitia saw a large tear dripping from her left eye. Fascinated, she watched the tear fall in slow motion down her cheek and spot the satin of her gown.

“I’m sorry,” Reena whispered, lips twitching. “I can’t do it now. Tell. Tell.”

Horrified, Letitia reached out, tried to stop her from falling, to lift her, paste and push her back into place, but Reena was too heavy and she could not stop her descent, only slow it. Reena’s feet kicked out like a horse’s, bruising Letitia’s legs, all in apparent silence, and her eyes were bright and empty and wet, fluttering, showing the whites.

Letitia bent over her, hands raised, afraid to touch her, afraid not to, unaware she was shrieking.

Fayette and Edna Corman stood behind her, equally helpless.

Reena lay still like a twisted doll, face upturned, eyes moving slowly to Letitia, vibrating, becoming still.

“Not you!” Letitia screamed, and barely heard the commotion in the audience. “Please, God, let it be me, not her!”

Fayette backed away and Miss Darcy came into the light, grabbing Letitia’s shoulders. She shook free.

“Not her,” Letitia sobbed. The medicals arrived and surrounded Reena, blocking her from the eyes of all around. Miss Darcy firmly, almost brutally, pushed her students from the stage and herded them into the green room. Her face was stiff as a mask, eyes stark in the paleness.

“We have to
do
something!” Letitia said, holding up her hands, beseeching.

“Get control of yourself,” Miss Darcy said sharply. “Everything’s being done that can be done.”

Fayette said, “What about the play?”

Everyone stared at him.

“Sorry,” he said, lip quivering. “I’m an idiot.”