"They are. But if you knew Pops ..." I grinned. "It's lucky they didn't find this during the break-in, but Pops has his hiding places."
Wei pulled the book out of her bag and handed it to me. "I hope Ed didn't see exactly what it was," she said.
"Look, he was all the way across the street and it was dark. It's not like I did anything wrong." Sandy plopped down on the inflato-mat and started plucking at the blanket, obviously still upset. I figured it had a lot more to do with Derek and Wei than with the book.
"You also shouted at full voice. And he could've had some kind of nightscope," Wei retorted. She shot a withering look at Sandy, who fortunately was so busy looking at Derek that she didn't see it.
"Give her a break," Mike said. "If he saw it, he saw it. We already know he knows that Ginnie gave something to Nina and he wants it. And has been looking for it."
Sal, Derek, Wei, and I congregated in a circle on the floor. Mike perched on the edge of the bed close to Sandy and leaned over Sal's shoulder. Sandy was lying on her back, staring at the ceiling. I'd definitely have to be smoothing things over later.
On the page that contained all the pertinent information, Wei noticed the same things I did. "I wonder why Ed's name isn't written in after 'Father.'"
"I don't know," I said. "I wondered the same thing. Maybe Ginnie just wanted this book to be about her and Dee."
Following that was information about the hospital, how much Dee weighed, and all the normal baby statistics. The next page with writing on it said Mother's Thoughts at the top.
Ginnie had written how beautiful her new baby was and how much she loved her. How she hoped I would love my little sister and watch out for her. Then she'd signed her name and put a little squiggle after it.
"What's that funny mark after your mother's name?" Wei asked. "Is it just part of her signature? Like the way some girls dot their i's with hearts?"
"I've never seen her sign her name like that before. Although she did doodle all the time."
"It looks like a flower," Derek finally said.
"You're right," I agreed. "Unfortunately, that doesn't make it mean anything."
The next page, Father's Thoughts, was blank. As I flipped through the book, I noticed a photograph of me holding Dee when she came home from the hospital.
"Weren't you adorable," Sal teased.
I could feel the blush starting up my neck.
"Little-kid pictures are the worst," Wei said. "My mother is always ... what's that?"
A quiet beeping emanated from the scrambler, and the light was blinking red.
"It must have a timer," Sal said. "Do you know how to reset it?"
"No." What if I'd broken it? Would Gran be furious?
"When the light stops blinking, if it stays red, I bet it won't be scrambling anymore," Sal said.
The beeping stopped, and sure enough, the light burned a steady red. We were already deep in discussion about zydeco music, hurricanes, and guitars. Well, everyone else was. I was silent, picturing Ed, hunkered down in his car, listening to everything we said.
XXXI.
Sandy had fallen asleep while we were all still talking. I covered her with a blanket and shortly after that, everyone left. I went to sleep on the sofa. Next morning, when Gran got up, I knew I had to tell her about the baby book. She had to know that I wasn't the only person who suspected my father was alive. But Sandy appeared and I didn't want to go into it while she was there. I was glad to see her snit from the night before was over.
"Hi, Mrs. Oberon." She gave Gran a hug. "Can I help with breakfast?"
"No. I'm sure you and Nina still have a lot of catching up to do. I'll let you know when it's ready."
Sandy and I went back to my room. We sat down cross-legged on the inflato-mat.
"I don't think your friend Wei likes me."
"She's just being protective."
"Of Derek?" Sandy scanned the top of my "box" dresser and picked up a couple of my text chips. "Can't blame her; he's gotten pretty cute."
"Derek looks like he always has. You never thought he was cute before."
"Yes I did. But he was crazy about you. Bet he still is. If you wanted him ..." She snapped her fingers in front of my nose. "All the guys like you. Zeb asked about you just last week. And that ultrahot guy from your art class ... you know the one, he's got purple streaks in his hair ..."
"Grayson?"
"Yeah. He told me to tell you he was sorry about your mom."
"Tell him thanks." Grayson and his friends had never talked to me the entire time I was in school with them. Weird. "You know, Sandy, you could've been a little nicer to Mike."
"Yeah, yeah, he's kinda sweet, in a ... well, you know." She must've thought better about making some rude remark regarding him. "I did tell him I'd call him about going to the zoo sometime. It's cool that he can get us into the barns and stuff. And I do like that he knows all about cows. I guess he's not so bad." She pondered Mike for a moment, then tossed one of my chips at me. "You're taking L & L? We're reading stupid plays by some guy named Shakespeare who's been dead for over five hundred years. What did he know about anything, huh? And I guess it's completely out of the question for you to ask Ed to pick me for FeLS?"
"Sandy, are you crazy?" I slapped my hands to my head. "How can you even ask that? Weren't you listening last night?"
"What? That you guys are all Non-"
I dove across the bed, landing on top of Sandy. "What's wrong with you? Do you want the entire world to hear?" I whispered.
"Where's that ma-"
I clapped a hand over her mouth. "Where's what? My math homework? You want to see what we're studying here?"
"I'm not going to tell anybody anything, Nina. Didn't we go through this last night?"
"Sandy, sometimes you say things without thinking." I was waiting for an outburst-none came.
"Sometimes I do, don't I? XVI Ways says a little ditziness is charming to guys."
"It can also get you in big trouble," I whispered.
She ran her fingers through her hair and flounced it around for a minute. "Look, Nina, I intend to get into FeLS, one way or another. I'm not smart enough to get a scholarship, and FeLS is the only way out of low-tier hell, okay?"
"It's not everything it's supposed to be," I said, remembering Mrs. Jenkins's warning. "How come girls who go into it never come home again?" I thought about Joan.
"What do you mean never come home again? Jolianna Whitcomb came to the school right after you left. She said it was the most amazing experience she ever had." Sandy's eyes widened. "And you should have seen what she was wearing. Ultrachic all the way." She clutched her arms around herself. "I'm going to look like that, too. And guys ... she had tons of digis of her with the cutest guys in the solar system. She ate lunch with some of us, and told us, strictly secret, that she has sex whenever she wants to, with whomever she wants. She said her first was Tylo! Can you believe that?" Sandy flopped back on the bed. "Having sex with the Tylo."
"Sandy, there's more to life than having sex with vid stars. And what does Tylo need a Female Liaison Specialist for? He's got tons of people who are always with him. And one girl coming back out of how many? At least fifty that have gone from our school in the past year. Where are the rest? Like Mike's sister, Joan, where's she?" I almost said I'd seen her, that she was homeless, but that whole encounter still freaked me out. The vibe I'd gotten from the woman who was with her was that Joan wasn't just messed up; she was in danger, too.
Sandy propped herself up with one arm. "Who cares? Don't you see? If I'm a FeLS, I'll get to wear ultra clothes and hang out with vid stars and have all kinds of money. Nina, I don't want to live in Cementville all my life and marry some tier-two loser and end up like my mom. If I get the chance to leave, I'm never coming back."
She was right. Girls like us didn't have choices. We were either super smart or artistic and got scholarships so we could enter a profession, or we ended up stuck in the kind of life we grew up in. Unless we were lucky enough to get some tier-three or -four guy to fall in love with us. Even then, they probably wouldn't marry below their tier. Sure, they'd have sex with anyone, but they married into their own, or higher if they could.
Then there was FeLS. Whatever secrets they were keeping, most low-tier girls wouldn't care, they just wanted out of their lives. I shuddered when I thought about how "out of her life" Joan was.
Sandy kept going on and on about FeLS and all the places she would travel to and how she'd send me digi-cards of all of them. "You'll be so sorry you didn't even apply," she said. "You still could."
I shook my head. "It's not for me, Sandy."
She covered the small details of all of her boyfriends and everything that they'd ever said or done until Gran called us for breakfast. Afterward I was going to walk to the station with Sandy, but Gran insisted I let Pops and Dee do it.
"I need Nina's help with something."
"What's that?" Pops asked.
"None of your business, old man. Now, you three get out of here or Sandy will miss the express."
"Can we stop at Toy Planet on the way back?" Dee asked.
"Sure nuff," Pops said. "Let me get this leg on good 'n tight."
He didn't see Sandy wrinkle her nose as he made a few adjustments. I hugged her and whispered, "At least think about not getting chosen, okay?" She promised to talk to me later and that was that. Pops grabbed his cane and they went out the door.
"I do believe that leg is bothering him more than usual," Gran said to me when they were gone. "He takes that cane almost all the time now. Then again"-she sighed-"maybe he's just getting older-like me." She went to the chiller and reached above it for the scrambler. I panicked.
"Gran," I confessed, "I borrowed the machine last night. I think I broke it. I put it back, but. ..."
"Here's how to take care of that." She showed me a tiny button on the bottom. "Do this." She jabbed it with the tine of a fork. "Now it's good as new." She switched it on. "We need to do some talking, don't we? About Ed."
"How did you ... ?"
"I don't think he's back for Dee-he could've taken her from Ginnie at any time. After Alan died, the government refused to give Ginnie survivor benefits because his body hadn't been found. You and she were living with us and the financial burden was difficult. All we had were Pops's disability payments."
I wondered if Dee and I were too much of a burden now.
Gran must have noticed the expression on my face because she said, "We get survivor benefits. When they finally declared your father dead-eight years after his disappearance-Ginnie signed the credits over to us to put in trust in case anything happened to her."
"She was afraid something would happen to her, wasn't she?"
"I think she was," Gran said. "She got a job as executive assistant to the vice president, at Rockford Stone's headquarters in Achelon Towers."
I couldn't help interrupting. "I know. It was a tier-five job. What made her become a tier-two service worker in a cafeteria?"
"Patience, dear, I'm getting there." She eyed the light on the scrambler; it was still green.
"She had a respectable job and didn't go near any of her and Alan's old friends."
"Jonathan Jenkins."
"Yes, Jonathan, Jade, Brock and Elise, they all kept their distance for obvious reasons. Although this little baby"-she patted the scrambler-"got plenty of use for a while. Ginnie was never seen in public with them, but they did talk-often."
"But . . . Ed?"
"He and Ginnie met at an interplanetary conference on the moon. He was working for the government on a deal with Rockford Stone on mining ocribundan from Mars. She was so beautiful. I'm sure he fell for her on the spot." She cleared her throat. "It had been four years since Alan's death. I'd told her that she was too young to pine for him forever and you needed a father. I just was never sure about Ed."
"But he was married and has kids. Why did she even go out with him in the first place?"
"She didn't know about his family until after she was pregnant."
"He was so mean, Gran."
"He never hit her until after Dee was born." She shook her head. "I urged her to leave him. I was afraid for her and for you girls."
The scrambler started its low beep and the light was blinking red.
"It has to cool down," Gran said. "One reset won't keep it going long enough. These old scramblers are about as temperamental and cantankerous as me."
"There are things I have to tell you, Gran. Important things. Can't we try?"
"If they're that important, we can't risk being heard. Patience, dear."
I had no patience.
Gran promised we could try again after lunch, so I wolfed down a nut butter sandwich and some chips. As if eating fast would speed things up. I couldn't stop thinking about everything that was going on.
What ended up taking my mind off the scrambler was a call from Sal.
"I'm delivering a dual trannie to a customer out in the country. Want to come along? We can take the express back." I mentioned it to Gran, and she practically shooed me out the door.
Fifteen minutes later I was in the lobby, hiding behind one of the fake plants that flanked the doorway. I scoped out the street. When I didn't see anything resembling Ed or his green transport, I went outside.
Standing in a sheltered patch of sunshine, shielded from the legendary Chicago winds, I was warm. It felt more like spring than almost winter. I basked in my little bit of sun until I heard a beep. It was Sal in a shiny blue dual transport.
"Wow! This is really cool," I said.
Sal hopped out. "We modified the engine-it goes to one-twenty in sixty seconds. And the exterior ... you like?"
He paraded me around the vehicle, pointing out the gold flecks in the Hawsworth blue paint. And showed me that when the light reflected a certain way you could see a deep pink flower with a thorny stalk encircling the transport.
I felt an overwhelming urge to trace it with my finger, but I didn't dare touch. "It looks like Wei's tattoo."
"Yep, it's a thistle." Sal opened the passenger door. "Madam ..." He bowed low with a sweep of his arm.
I giggled, sliding into the seat, which immediately conformed to every curve of my body.
"Comfort Style," I murmured. I'd heard about the features of Comfort Style in verts, but never imagined I'd ever get to sit in a tran that had it. I felt guilty about enjoying the luxury. It didn't seem fair to relax when I had so much to worry about.
Sal got in on the other side. "Give it a sec, it will warm you up, too. Ready?"