Brave New Love (26 page)

Emily laughed out loud at that part, but I was fuming.

“Come on,” she said. “You’ve got to see the humor in that!” She rolled her eyes. “I mean . . . Scott?”

“Hey!” Scott said. “I’m right here, you know.” He played it off like a joke, but his ears had gone a bit red, and he wouldn’t meet my eyes.

And I wasn’t laughing.

Emily sobered. “Look, sis, what is it that’s got you so angry? That they aren’t giving you credit for your dastardly plan or that they think you’re the weak link and most
likely to rat?”

“Both,” I grumbled. Was WOMB right? Was I helping Emily for the right reasons, or was it only because she was manipulating me into it?

“None of it is real.” Scott patted me awkwardly on the shoulder, then pulled his hand away. I almost reached out then, almost caught his hand and put it back. I wasn’t Emily. I
didn’t find the idea of being with him laughable. Sure, I’d been playing it cool this last week, but it was a necessity. I didn’t have time for romance in high school, and I
certainly didn’t have time for it while on the run from WOMB. “It’s just what they think will get the best response.”

“So they think I’m a meek little sheep?” I snapped.

“Or they hope you’ll get angry at being called that and make a mistake.” Scott shrugged. “And if it doesn’t work, next week they can come up with a different
story.”

“I wonder if they’d keep their word?” Emily’s head was tilted to the side as she studied the tablet. “I wonder if you could use the casts to make them keep their
word?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well,” she said, “they’re basically saying you’re not in trouble, right? If their public story is that you’ve been kidnapped by me and Scott—that
you’ve been forced to do all these things to help us—well, if you went back, you wouldn’t be punished.”

“I’m not going back!”

“But if you
did
.” She sounded thoughtful. “You
could
.”

I looked from her to the screen and then back again. I looked at Scott, who was acting like he wasn’t even in the room.

Yes, I suppose I could. But now, knowing what I know, I couldn’t imagine wanting to.

•  •  •

Looking back, I suppose I could see each step along the path. I started analyzing the WOMB casts I saw at night. When I knew how they’d twisted our story, it was easy to
see the stitching on all the other stories. Those smiling WOMB facility girls weren’t real, they were actresses. I recognized one in a toothpaste commercial, another on a store screen at the
mall. I also began to notice the scared expressions on the faces of pregnant women on the street whenever a WOMB official would pass. I saw how they’d wear big Party buttons and flash their
wedding rings and smile nervously at everyone as if to scream,
I’m harmless. Please don’t take my baby.

I couldn’t believe I’d never noticed this before. Scott had pulled the scales from my eyes. So although my entire, perfect, organized plan lay in ruins . . . I was okay. My plan had
been designed to sneak around
inside
the system. The system that told me to hate my sister for making a mistake. The system that told me that WOMB had a right to our bodies and the fate of
our babies. The system that told us it wasn’t possible for us to take care of ourselves or make hard choices or sacrifices for the ones we loved.

It was all wrong.

Of course, there were plenty of areas where I wasn’t prepared to help Emily. Labor, for example. I could squeeze her hand, of course, or whisper words of encouragement in her ear. I could
even cut the cord between her and the baby boy she delivered after what seemed like an endless labor.

(Yes, it was a boy. Emily was right again.)

But all I could really do was put my trust in people who could actually help us. Scott, who found us a Foundlings-friendly midwife. The Bruckners, who truly wanted nothing more than a baby. They
could have made serious money and scored brownie points with the Party for ratting us out, but they might not have been rewarded with their baby. They chose him.

And so it was that on a cold and sleety Saturday, eight months after Emily told me about the positive, my twin sister had a baby. After it was all over, I sat in the room with Emily while she
cradled her son for the first and last time. I marveled at how tiny he was—so tiny, and so alone. Emily and I had been born wrapped around each other. Mom told us we used to suck each
other’s thumbs in our bassinet. But this little guy was on his own. He’d never know what it would be to like to be us. Tears filled my eyes and I looked away, embarrassed.

Emily wasn’t crying. She was perfectly calm, beatific even, like one of those old religious paintings of mother and child. She nuzzled him and kissed him and stared into his dark, blue,
alien eyes.

“Sakasaka, little one,” she said, and I didn’t even mind. It seemed right for her to use our language with him. “Farewell.” The baby’s eyelids fluttered for a
moment, and he lifted his tiny hand and curled his index finger over his temple. I gasped.

When it came time for his parents to take him away, Emily squeezed my hands so hard she left bloody half-moons all over my skin. She held me harder now than she had during labor and delivery.
This time she was really letting him go.

“What are you going to name him?” she asked Mrs. Bruckner, with a hitch in her voice.

The woman reddened. She was pretty, though fair and tall. Her husband was the same. They looked nothing like us. I imagined her on some playground, explaining away his dark hair and fuller
build.
Aren’t genetics a funny thing? Oh, he looks like my grandfather on my mother’s side . . .

“We were thinking of naming him Emmett, after you,” she said. “Would you mind?”

Emily forced a smile. Probably no one else but me would know how hard it was for her to do so in that moment. “That’s beautiful,” she said. “Thank you.”

And then he was gone. One minute, he was there, this little squished tomato thing with impossibly tiny fingers that wrapped around yours by instinct, and then the next minute, he was gone
forever, and it was just the two of us again. Even Scott left us alone. We lay on the bed, holding one another. For three days, we remained there. Emily took the meds they gave her, the ones that
would mask her post-partum symptoms, and Scott came by every few hours with food. We watched old movies, napped a lot, and talked very little.

And on day four, Emily woke up, turned to me and said: “What now?”

I’d been the girl with the plan. But now that we’d achieved its goals, I had no idea.

•  •  •

Sometimes plans are the result of long periods of study and strategizing, and sometimes they’re the work of an instant. Did we get sloppy? Did we have an extra-observant
neighbor? Did someone notice that there were two girls—not one—renting that motel room? After all, twins stand out. We stood out as specimens on the WOMB cast they kept rerunning, and
we stood out whenever we were together. People might not be able to tell us apart, but when you see double, you remember it.

However it happened, it was sudden. I was standing by the window, as usual, waiting for Scott to get back from a shopping trip. Emily was watching the local casts, which she preferred to letting
me rant and rave over the latest WOMB cast lies. I heard her sharp intake of breath just as Scott’s Prius slammed up the drive in a cloud of dust and gravel.

“They’re coming,” he cried out as soon as he came in. “We have to go, now!”

“Grab your coat,” I called to Emily and shoved my feet into my shoes. “What can they do now?” I asked Scott. “Emily’s not pregnant anymore. They can’t
force us into WOMB.”

“They can detain us for questioning,” he said. He grabbed a bag and started shoving our belongings into it. “They can try to track down the baby. They can try to use me to
force my parents out of hiding.”

Emily hadn’t moved. Her eyes remained fixed on the screen. “The locals are showing this,” she whispered. “Look, they’re going to arrest us on livecast.” She
pointed the screen at me and I caught sight of WOMB officials in their silver vans driving down familiar roads. They were heading straight for us. They were probably ten minutes away.

“Em, come on!” I tugged on her arm. “We have to go now.”

She shook her head and pulled away. “No. They’ll find us.”

Scott zipped up the duffel. “They’ll surely find us if we stay! Think of Emmett.”

“I am,” said Emily. She looked at me. “They’re livecasting this. And no one knows exactly how pregnant I was when I left. No one knows Emmett’s already
born.”

“So?” I asked.

“So,” said Emily. “Remember the WOMB cast? Remember how they said they just wanted you to come home? What if you did? What if you turned yourself in on the local livecast?
They’d have to stand by their word. They couldn’t punish you.”

“Why in the world would I do that?” I said. “I don’t want to go back.”

“You wouldn’t be going back,” Emily said. “
I
would.”

Scott and I stared at her in shock. Scott found his voice first. “This is stupid,” he said. “We have to run.”

“And you need someone to throw them off your trail,” Emily argued. “I’ll tell them that Emily and Scott ran away and left me. I’ll tell them Emily’s still
pregnant. And then I’ll tell them all the wrong places to look.”

“You’ll be me?” I asked, stupidly. “For good?”

“This won’t work.” Scott’s voice had grown frantic. “They’ll never believe what you say. You’ll be imprisoned. You’ll be
interrogated—especially if they believe they can still get their hands on the baby.”

“She’ll be livecast by the locals, though,” I said. “WOMB made a mistake—they’ve made too big of a deal about giving me amnesty. They have to stand by their
word, or risk alienating other accomplices who might turn themselves in.” I turned to her. “But why you, Emily? I can be the one to stay.”

She looked at me. “No, you can’t. You’ve already given up too much for me. I don’t want you to give him up, too.”

Scott cleared his throat and looked away. I sputtered.

“Come on,” she said. “I might not be as smart as you, but I’m not an idiot. You love him, and he loves you.”

“Emily—”

“We don’t really, um, have time for all this right now,” said Scott, bouncing on his feet.

Emily grabbed my hands. “I know you think you’re being careful, that if you never let yourself fall in love, you’ll never get hurt. But Scott’s not Robbie. He’s
good. He’s good for you.”

And then I realized. She’d been making fun of WOMB’s story of her having been impregnated by him for weeks, but not because she found the idea of dating him laughable. It was because
she found the idea of him being irresponsible—the way she and Robbie had been—impossible.

“Trust your sister,” Emily said. “Trust me, the way I should have trusted you.”

I looked at her, my mirror, even now after everything, and nodded. “Sakasaka.”

•  •  •

Sometimes—especially when a few months go by without any girls showing up with messages from Emily coded in our language—Scott worries that WOMB has gotten to her
and she’s turned on us. But I know Emily’s stronger than that. It’s weird to see her on the casts now, in that crimson and gray uniform, her hair tamed back into a bun. She does
look like me. I always said it took little more to fool people than a well-placed ponytail. It’s funny; it took her becoming me and me becoming Emily for either of us to be ourselves.

Emily spouts the Party’s lines well enough on the casts. She’s a regular poster child these days, as charismatic as ever. But the truth is plain as day if you’re us. Every
time, right at the end, she looks into the camera, and curls her index finger around her temple.

Everything’s sakasaka. We just have to be patient, and follow the steps.

J
EANNE
D
U
P
RAU

One gray, blustery February day Miranda Williams received a letter that would change her life. Her mother handed it to her when she got home from school. Miranda read the
return address:
Department of Municipal Investigation, Government Building 51Dn22, 19442 Grand Blvd. E, Area 31, Monument Segment, Berg 12, TK 602857.

“Look where this is from,” she said. “How can it be for me?”

“I don’t know,” said her mother. “Why not open it?” She was feeding the twins; their faces were splotched with orange baby food. On the TV, cartoon characters
shrieked and zoomed. One of Miranda’s sisters was talking on the phone, and her grandmother sat at the kitchen table muttering softly as she cut coupons out of magazines.

Miranda opened the envelope and read the letter out loud:

“What?” cried Miranda. “What
is
this?”

Miranda’s mother set down the jar of baby food, took the letter, and frowned at it. “It must be a mistake,” she said. “Just call and tell them.”

But there was no phone number on the letter, and no email address.

“You’ll have to go,” Miranda’s mother said.

“What if they put me in jail?”

“Don’t be silly,” said Miranda’s mother, but not in a very confident voice. In this city, people were arrested for breaking laws they’d never heard of. They got
parking tickets that cost a month’s salary and spent years fighting through mazes of paperwork and paying endless fees to prove themselves innocent of ridiculous charges. Everyone knew that
the best plan for dealing with the city government was to stay out of its way.

So on February 17, Miranda put on a drab brown outfit. She wanted to look unimportant, like someone who would never cause trouble. But when she looked in the mirror, she could hardly stand the
sight of herself. All that brown. Her eyes were brown, and her brown hair was tied back with a brown rubber band. She looked as if she’d been rolled in dust. So she wrapped her flame-colored
scarf around her neck. She would take it off before she arrived.