Brave New Love (27 page)

She went down the elevator, out the door of her apartment building, and on to the sidewalk, where she joined the rushing throngs of people. There was hardly a moment in Miranda’s life when
she wasn’t surrounded by people: at school in a five-hundred seat auditorium, watching a teacher on a huge screen; on the streaming streets of the city or in the packed subways; at home, with
two frantically busy parents, five brothers and sisters, an ailing grandmother, and the cousin of her father’s friend’s brother, who had come to the city from some disintegrating
country far away and was staying with them for a while. It was odd, she often thought, how with so many people around you could still be lonely.

Outside, a mean wind blew grit along the sidewalk. Miranda wrapped her scarf more closely around her neck and started walking. Between her home in Building 3423, 990 Granite Avenue, Area 51,
Gravelyard Segment 4, and the building she was headed for in Area 31 lay the vastness of the city—the grids and loops of streets, the freeways cutting through in long arcs, the subway tunnels
and elevated trains, the skyscrapers checkered with dark and lighted windows that never opened, the traffic grinding along in the deep canyons between the walls of concrete. And everywhere, people:
breathing, talking, eating, coming and going, tunneling out spaces for their lives in the vastness of the city as if they were earthworms in the earth. You had to make an effort to remember, in
this teeming place, that your own life, or anyone’s, was important at all.

Miranda went down a stairway to a wide underground hall filled with ticket machines, where she lined up behind a tall young man in a black pea coat. He was carrying some sort of cage, holding it
with a finger hooked through a ring at the top. It was dome-shaped and covered with a dark green cloth. She had only just noticed this when somebody bumped into her and she stumbled forward against
the cage, which on its swing back struck hard against her knee.

“Ouch,” she said, and when the person holding the cage turned and looked at her she said, “I’m sorry. Someone pushed me.”

His hair was chestnut-brown and he was not much older than she was.

“Are you hurt?” he said.

“No,” said Miranda. She pointed to the cage. “It just bumped me.” Then, for too many seconds, she couldn’t take her eyes from his, because his gaze shot into her
and struck a vital spot right at her center. She stared at him for four seconds, or five, or six, which is a long time to look into the eyes of a stranger in the subway ticket-machine line.

The boy blinked and spoke again. “It’s a canary,” he said, “for my sister.” He pulled aside a flap of the cover, and Miranda saw a yellow bird inside. The moment
the light struck it, the bird raised its head and released a long stream of notes, like golden bubbles of sound. Even in the roar of the station—the clanging of the gates, the squeal of
brakes, the clamor of voices—the notes sounded high and clear.

A rough voice called, “You’re up, kid,” and the boy turned back to buy his ticket. Miranda bought hers quickly afterward, and as she pulled it from the slot, she looked to her
left and saw him walking toward Train 93, in the opposite direction from her train, which was 17. For half a second, she had the urge to run after him and ask about the canary, or ask his name or
where he was going, but the crowd engulfed him, and she knew she hadn’t the nerve to do it. She was too shy. She hated her shyness! She turned right and moved with the swarm of people down
the tunnel that led to her train.

She didn’t see the boy stop and look over his shoulder. She was quite a distance away by then, telling herself that what had just happened was nothing and that she was being stupid to
think about it one more second.

•  •  •

Building 51Dn22 was gray concrete, unlabeled except for the number on its heavy double door. Miranda removed her red scarf and put it in her purse. She went up in an elevator
and found Mr. Ferris Slocum in Office 27a.

“Please have a seat,” he said, looking not at her but at the papers on his desk.

Miranda did.

“You are Miranda Williams,” he said, “forty-four years old, single, resident of Building 29, Ironwood Street, Area 78—”

“No,” said Miranda politely, but Mr. Slocum read on without stopping.

“—Leadwall Segment 14. Suspected of involvement in practicing a trade without a license, specifically—”

“Excuse me,” said Miranda, more loudly this time.

Mr. Slocum looked up.

“That isn’t me,” she said. “It must be someone else with my name.”

He raised his eyebrows skeptically and pursed his mouth. “I will need documentation,” he said, “including birth certificate in triplicate and proof of address—”

“But sir,” said Miranda. “It can’t be me you want, because look,” she stood up, “I’m sixteen.”

He frowned at her, narrowing his eyes. “Hmm,” he said. He checked his papers again, running a finger down the edge of the page. He looked up at her. “It’s true,” he
said, “that if you are forty-four, you are very young-looking for your age.” He smiled, a small smile, but not an unkind one. “Administrative error. Our apologies. Have a pleasant
day.”

Back in the hall, Miranda took in a deep breath of stale office air. She put her red scarf back on. All the way to the subway station, she felt light and floaty and hopeful about everything. She
wasn’t in trouble after all! She was
grateful that
she’d been called in by Ferris Slocum, because otherwise she’d never have been at station 47 and never would have seen
the boy with the bird. Maybe somehow she’d see that boy again. She could search for him. Why not? It could be a sort of quest, like the ones she’d read about in old stories, where a
seeker embarks on a difficult journey to find a treasure. True love, in this case. She smiled. It was so silly—a boy she’d seen once, for a few seconds, a perfect stranger. She
didn’t care. She made up her mind to look for him.

How to begin? She pondered that on the long ride home. She had two clues: he rode the 93 train through station 47, and he’d bought a canary. What could she do with those two clues? Keep
riding the 93 train until she saw him again? Go to all the places in this city that might have sold him a bird?

Yes, she thought. I could do those things.

•  •  •

The boy’s name was Owen Marks. He was a good-looking boy, but not movie-star handsome; his ears stuck out a little, and he was a bit too thin for his height. He
wasn’t used to having girls look at him the way the girl at the subway station had.

He boarded his train and put the birdcage between his feet. All the way home, he thought about that girl. She had brown, wide-set eyes, and he had stared into them for much longer than
he’d meant to, probably longer than he should have. He’d had the feeling you do when you’re walking on something you think is solid and which suddenly gives way and you fall. He
had fallen like that into her gaze.

The train’s lights flickered, as they often did and the train screeched as it went around a curve. Owen thought, I wish I could see that girl again. She must live somewhere near station
47. He never ordinarily went to that station, which was where he’d needed to transfer on his way home from buying the canary. How lucky that he’d made the trip today! Otherwise,
he’d never have seen the girl.

At the Station 49 stop, so many people got on that Owen had to put the birdcage on his lap and wrap his arms around it. He could hear a soft, whispery rustle of feathers from within. Strange, he
thought, how that one look and those few words had jolted him. He
would
like to see that girl again. Why shouldn’t he look for her? He could think of it as a quest. He would never find
her, of course. It would be like looking for one particular grain of sand in a swirling sandstorm. But that’s what a quest was—a difficult search for something nearly impossible to
find. Why not? he thought again. I’ll do it.

•  •  •

Daylight was almost gone by the time Owen got home. His sister Emma lay curled on the couch, staring at a soccer game on TV. Emma had an illness that made her so weak that she
couldn’t walk much farther than down the hall and back. Owen carried a permanent ache in his heart for her.

“Emma,” Owen said. “Where’s Mom?”

“She went out to buy cigarettes.”

“And left you alone again.”

“Yes.”

Some months ago, Owen’s father had left home. He had to get out of the city or die, he said. He would find another, better place, and he would send for them to come and join him. But no
word had come, and Owen’s mother had begun to fall apart. She couldn’t sleep, she didn’t comb her hair, she’d forget to shop for groceries until there was nothing in the
house but an old jar of pickle relish. She sometimes left Emma alone for hours.

So Owen had to take on responsibilities. He couldn’t make Emma well. No one, so far, had succeeded in that. But he could make her happy, or at least happier. That was the reason for the
bird. She needed something alive, something beautiful, something other than the TV.

He opened the curtains to let some light into the room and then went over to her. “Look,” he said, taking the cover off the cage.

Emma raised herself on one elbow. She peered into the cage. The bird awoke, hopped sideways on its perch, looked up at the light, cocked its head and sang.

Emma smiled. “It’s beautiful! I love it,” she said. “Thank you, big O.”

So Owen was happy, and being happy made him bold. That afternoon, he took the first step in his quest. He applied for a job at a company called Twisto Snax, which sold pretzels at subway
stations. He requested Station 47.

“You will need to submit your request in writing,” said the person on the phone. “Download Form Y33 from our website and send it in with the five dollar fee. Processing
applications usually takes two to three months.”

“Two to three
months
!”

“That is correct. Unless you wish to expedite your application by paying a thirty-five dollar fee.”

Owen sighed. He was fairly sure the extra thirty dollars would go straight into someone’s pocket. But he felt an urgency about his quest, so he sent in the form and the money and only a
week later, he received an email telling him he had the job. His hours would be 6 a.m. to 12 p.m. five days a week. He would have to skip his morning classes, but that didn’t matter. No one
noticed, in those huge, chaotic classrooms, if any particular student were there or not.

So the first step was accomplished. That was a good sign. I’m an idiot, Owen said to himself, but he couldn’t ignore the stirring of excitement at the thought of seeing the girl
again.

•  •  •

His partner at his new job was a man named Clement, a tall, soft spoken man with faded red hair. Clement, who was new to the city, never stopped moving. When customers came, his
long pale fingers danced over the cart, working fast, and when there were no customers, he wiped down the cart, organized the cash drawer, or just paced back and forth, arms crossed over his chest,
drumming his fingers against his elbows.

Owen, at first, did his job badly. He kept his eyes on the passing crowd, looking for the girl, and so he often gave a customer the wrong kind of pretzel or incorrect change.

“Something is the matter?” Clement asked at the end of the first week. “You seem not paying attention. Please. I can’t have problems. If you go I go and I need this
job.”

Owen tried to do better. He could see that Clement was poor—he wore the same black trousers and shabby jacket every day. So Owen made an effort to keep his mind on the job. Still, between
customers, he watched the crowd, looking out for girls wearing red-orange scarves. But he saw no one with a red-orange scarf. At least no one who looked like the girl. Of course, he reminded
himself, she might have other scarves. She wouldn’t wear the same scarf every day and he’d need to look instead for a young, brown-haired, medium-tall girl. Unfortunately, there were
millions of them.

One day, a man in a long overcoat approached the Twisto Snax stand. “Ronald Ripley, government inspector,” he said. “Present your permit, please.”

“Right there,” said Clement, pointing to the side of the cart where the permit was taped.

The man in the coat leaned over and peered at it. “As I thought,” he said. “You owe a fee. Fifty dollars.”

Clement’s eyes widened in fear. “But I was never told—”

“Mister Ripley,” said Owen. “We would like to see your government identification. We have a right to know if you are who you say you are.”

Ripley put a hand in his coat pocket and came out with a card encased in scratched and grimy plastic. One glance at it was enough for Owen. “I’ll just make a phone call to confirm
your ID,” he said, and he took his phone from his pocket and punched in a number.

Ripley pounded a fist on the pretzel cart, making the condiments jump. “One week!” he said. He pointed a finger at Clement. “I’ll give you one more week to make your
payment. I’ll be back.” He scuttled away.

Clement was so shaken he couldn’t speak above a whisper. “You made things so much worse!” he said. “Now I’ll be in trouble for not paying, and in trouble for
speaking disrespectful, and—”

Owen put a hand on Clement’s arm to calm him. He explained that no government “official” would bother to come down here to collect fees. “He won’t be back,”
Owen said. “He’ll find some other new person to prey on. He’s gone for good.”

Clement was grateful, Owen worked more conscientiously, and things went well between them. But days passed without any sign of the girl in the red scarf. It grew difficult for Owen to keep
believing in his quest. After all, there were other girls. Millions of them. He wasn’t even sure if he’d like the girl in the red scarf once he got to know her. And yet—whenever
he thought of the look that passed between them, he felt a sort of earthquake in his heart.

•  •  •

Miranda had by that time made a list of all the pet stores in the city—there were 643. Even if she went to one every day, it would take her almost two years to visit them
all, and she couldn’t possibly go to one every day. But twenty-two of the stores were easy to reach from the station where they’d met. And he’d been heading toward the 93 train.
There had to be a link. First, she began by going to the pet stores via station 47. And after school, at around two o’clock, she’d ride the 93 along its route, and back. It was a hard
task for a shy person; she had to gather her courage every time she went into a store, where she would tell the clerk the same thing: “I’m looking for a boy who bought a canary.
He’s tall and slender and about my age.”