Amnesia Moon (25 page)

“What about—what happened to this place? To Ray and Dave?” He avoided saying: You're a midget.

“What's wrong with Ray and Dave?” she said angrily.

“Forget it. Just come sit with me on the couch.”

They went back to the living room and sat. He still couldn't bring himself to touch her, didn't feel he knew how. Yet it was what he was here for, what he wanted most.

“Did you come to take Melinda away?” said Edie. “Is that what this is all about? You know I can't stop you. It's not my choice. But that girl needs—”

He held up a hand. “Edie, listen. I came back because of you. Not Melinda. I mean, Melinda too, both of you together. I want to live with you. Here or away from here. If it's okay.”

“What are you saying?”

“I love you, Edie.”

“Please don't,” she said quickly.

“What?”

“I don't need talk like that. It doesn't make sense. I know who you love. You're just like everyone else. You love the girl on the television.”

“No—”

“Yes. I saw her, before. In your dreams, over and over. And then on television, when you got that tape.”

“That was a mistake, Edie.”

“No.” She shook her head and smiled sadly. “Don't feel bad. That's how it is. The people on television are better. You don't have to be ashamed. Did you find her?”

“Sort of. It wasn't right.”

“You shouldn't say that. It's a very lucky thing if someone famous—from the government or television—cares about you. That's a very special thing. I have that, it's the only kind of luck I have.”

Everett felt a blur of confusion. Did she mean Cooley?

“Edie,” he said, and then he leaned over and put his lips to hers, felt her tiny nose against his, felt her eyelashes brush his cheek. At first her mouth was still, and all he felt was a trace of startled breath against his lips. Then she closed her eyes and kissed him, the force of all her passion behind it for a tantalizing moment. Just as quickly, she drew back.

“Oh, Jesus,” she sighed.

“Edie, it's me. Please say you remember—”

“I remember, Chaos, but this isn't right. You went away, and I understood. You could never love me.” She pointed to herself. “I don't understand why Ian does.”

“You weren't like this,” he blurted out. “You're a beautiful woman. Something they did changed it, made everybody here look different.”

“That's silly,” she said, nervously. “This is me. Please, Chaos, go away now. Don't torture me. Love the girl on television. She's the one who's beautiful.”

“I want you,” he said. “You were beautiful. You still are. Lots of people are beautiful, not just the ones on television.”

“Ordinary people are ugly. Look around, Chaos.” She looked away.

“I remember,” he said. “You were like a woman in a magazine. You loved showing your body to me.”

“You're being hateful. Why can't you face the truth? I'm ugly, Chaos.” She choked back tears.

“Something happened here, the dreamers in charge of Vacaville, they went overboard. They want you to think they're the only—”

“Shut up!” Her tiny voice was ragged with fury. “This is my life! I live here! I don't need you coming here and telling me about how you think it ought to be. You came here once and I listened to you, and you screwed everything up and then you left. Don't do this to me again! If you want to stay, then go get your luck tested. Maybe you belong on television, Chaos. Maybe you're special. But I'm not! Leave me alone!”

“This is crazy.” He wanted to pick up where he'd left off, wanted reality to sit still for him for once. “There aren't just fifteen or twenty attractive human beings in the world. I mean, if you aren't special, then what does Ian want with you, anyway?”

“That's private,” she hissed.

Agitated with jealousy, he jumped up from the couch. He needed room to think. “Where are the keys to your car?”

“Where are you going?”

“I want to prove it to you. How late is the mall open?”

“I don't know. I mean, it's still open . . .”

“Here, then.” He held out his hand, and she passed him the keys. “I'll be back.”

“Chaos.” Her voice was small, her anger replaced by confusion. “I don't like this.”

“Well, you can write me a ticket, a summons, when I get back.”

He went outside and found Melinda, and without explaining dragged her away from Ray and Dave and into Edie's car.

“Tell me what's going on here,” he said.

“Hey, I
told
you things were getting weird.”

He started the car, pulled out into the street. “So you'remember talking to me in Hatfork?”

“Yup. Saw my folks, and that guy Edge. Saw the messed-up place you live in, too. How'd you do that?”

He shook his head. “Forget it. Listen, doesn't anybody here remember two weeks ago?”

“Yeah, sure. They remember it
wrong.
Everybody started changing, and I tried to say something to Edie, but it was like they thought they were always like that. They just started watching TV even
harder.
”

“Changing? Getting ugly, you mean?”

“Yup. Except for Cooley and his pals. They got everyone looking awful so they could look good. Only they left me alone.” She laughed. “Guess they thought I was strange enough to look at like I was.”

“And it worked, didn't it? Edie's sleeping with Cooley now.” He had to know.

“Yup. But it's not her fault.”

He kept his eyes on the road.

“That's what it's like here now,” Melinda said. “Everybody's in love with the government. She can't help it. He's been hittin' on her for a long time, too.”

He turned and saw she was squinting at him. “What?” he said.

“You look funny,” she said. “You gain some weight?”

“Funny?”

“It's nothing,” she said, too quickly. “You probably just been eating good, after all those cans. I been doing the same thing.” She lifted her shirt and ruffled the margin of fur at her waist. “Where'd you go, anyway?”

“I saw some old friends. I'll tell you about it later.” He parked the car in the mall lot. “Wait here.”

He hurried through the mall, to the shop he'd seen before, where they sold comic books and magazines. He wanted to buy a copy of
Playboy
or
Penthouse
, to show Edie that beautiful bodies were everywhere, that the Vacaville cabal didn't have the market cornered.

He found the shop, but the rack with the adult magazines was missing.

He asked the clerk, a normally proportioned man whose appearance was ruined by a raspberry birthmark that covered his face like a splayed-out octopus. “We keep those behind the counter now,” the clerk explained. “What'll it be—endomorph?”

“What?”

“You know the new law, right?”

“New law? I just want to buy a copy of
Playboy.
”

“Fine. But the new law says you get the issue that corresponds to your body type. Midgets look at midgets, and so on.” He swept his arm back, indicating the rack behind the cabinet. Sure enough, there were ten or twelve different versions of
Playboy
, and the bodies Everett glimpsed on the covers were all distorted and wrong.

The clerk gave him the once-over. “Looks like endomorph to me,” he said. He flopped a magazine onto the counter. The woman on the cover was leering and enormous.

“What are you talking about?”

“Take a look, fella.”

Everett caught sight of himself in the window of the shop. He was hideously soft and fat, his cheeks jowly, his hands like tufts of dough.

“That'll be four dollars,” said the clerk.

“That's not what I want,” he said, a hopeless feeling settling over him. “I need to show someone something. I need a picture of a
nice
body. The way
Playboy
used to be.”

“They still make it like that,” nodded the clerk. “But only government stars can buy it.”

“Can't you sell me one? Nobody will know. It's important.”

“Hey, fella, you think you're the only one wants the good stuff? Cripes. I can't sell it to you, can't even look at it myself, and believe you me, I would. But they keep it locked up. Only the government stars have the keys.”

“You expect me to believe the customers have the keys and you don't?”

The clerk looked rueful. “Well, they don't actually pay, you know. In fact, we pay them to come and get it from us. Supposed to add prestige to the establishment.”

“Shit.”

“But if you want to look at them, you can,” said the clerk helpfully. “They just got their clothes on.” He indicated
People, Rolling Stone
, and
TV Guide.
The cover of
Rolling
Stone
showed Palmer O'Brien, and
People
featured President Kentman with his arm around Ian Cooley. “They're nicer to look at than this stuff anyway,” said the clerk confidentially.

“I don't want to look at
them
,” said Everett. “I want to look at
other
people who look nice.”

“But that's all the good
Playboy
is anyhow.” The clerk sounded confused. “Pictures of them without their clothes. Why would they want to look at anyone but themselves?”

“Forget it,” said Everett. He stalked out, or tried to, but his increasingly heavy body made sudden movement impossible. Everything was buffered in layers of flesh. So he oozed out instead and slammed the door behind him.

Moving back through the mall, he found that now he fit in. The people he passed weren't made uncomfortable by his presence anymore. He belonged. Soon maybe he'd be in love with a government star too.

He squeezed into the car, but it was work, and he had to move the seat back. Melinda looked him up and down and said, “You're definitely putting on weight.”

“We have to get out of here.”

“I was waiting for you to say that. Try telling Edie, though.”

He started the car, marveling at the flesh of his fingers, how far the key and steering wheel seemed from the bones of his hand.

“Don't tell me you're leaving her here, you crumb.”

“No,” he said. “We'll take her.”

“And Ray and Dave, right?”

He nodded.

By the time they got back, night had fallen. Ray and Dave were in front of the television. Edie was there too. They all looked up and watched as he rumbled into the apartment, but nobody said anything.

He slumped, defeated, into an armchair. Edie went quietly into the kitchen and came back with a beer for him, and he drank it and stewed in his thoughts while the others all watched television.

He waited for the evening to end, for the boys to be put to bed. It seemed to take forever. No one spoke. They crept around him in his chair like an obstacle. It made him think of Vance's description of the tumors that grew inside the houses in Los Angeles.

Finally Ray and Dave were asleep, and Melinda was in her room. Edie nodded to him, still not breaking the silence, and indicated the bedroom. He followed her inside, and she closed the door. She climbed up on the bed and sat on one of the pillows.

“Here.” She patted the pillow beside her with a tiny hand. “Will you come sit down?”

He went and sprawled on the bed glumly, keeping his distance. For their bodies to touch now would be even more absurd. But apparently she didn't think so, because she reached for his hand. However disparate their sizes, at least he was her equal now in ugliness. But he would have to get over all that, it seemed. Caring about size and ugliness.

“I'm sorry I freaked out, Chaos. It was a shock to have you come back.”

“It's okay. I just . . . I don't know what to do. I came here because of you.”

“That's okay,” she said softly.

“But everything seems screwed up. I don't think I can stay here, in Vacaville. I want to take you somewhere else.”

“Where?” She looked frightened again.

“I don't know. But this is no good.”

“You always talk like that, and I never know what you mean.”

“Edie,” he started, then stopped and began again. “Edie, you would understand if you went away. The way it is here, the way they have it, you can't think clearly about things. But you'd understand if you got out. Will you trust me?”

She nodded.

“Do you—want to be with me? I mean, instead of with Ian?”

“Yes,” she said.

“You're sure?”

“I'm sure. I don't want to be with Ian.” He felt her hand trembling in his.

“What?”

“There's something I didn't tell you. When I'm with Ian . . . I don't know how he does this, but my body changes. I'm not small anymore. I'm different, beautiful. Only while we're . . . together. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

A tear crossed her cheek. “I don't understand what it is. But it made me—want to do it. To experience that. I hated him, but at the same time—”

“You don't have to explain.”

She sniffled.

“Going away will mean that Ray and Dave won't see their father anymore,” he said.

“Gerald isn't much of a father,” she said. “He might not even notice. The boys would be sorrier to lose Melinda.” She curled up against him.

“We should go right away,” he said. “This place—it could make me forget who I am. And Ian, he'll just start pressuring me to take that test. I think he knows about my dreaming.”

“Okay,” she said. “We'll go tomorrow. Let's sleep now.” She tucked herself up against him like a small animal. He put his arm over her and pulled her closer, until he could feel her heartbeat thrum against his soft side.