Genesis Girl (17 page)

I want him to leave. I want him to leave so bad that my fingers clench into fists and I’m ready to fight. But part of me wants to sit on that ottoman. To forget this animosity and remember the taste of his lips crushed against mine.

“Cal said—” I begin, but the Virus interrupts me.

“My dad said what about me? That you should call me Virus?”

“No,” I admit. “He said to call you Seth.”

“And what else did my dad say?”

I look at Seth lounging there, on my ottoman, in my room, saying every last thing he can to annoy me. He’s ink-covered and tech-infested, and he’s ruining my whole night! But Cal did say that I was supposed to talk to Seth.

“Cal said that I’m supposed to engage in ordinary conversation with you whenever the situation warrants talking.”

“Well then,” Seth says. “I have a situation that warrants conversing. Sit down, Soap-girl.”

I take a seat on the edge of the ottoman as far away from him as possible and try to stay calm.

“What do you want, Seth?”

“Nothing.” He taps his foot and his leg jitters. “I wanted to talk to you, that’s all.”

“We don’t have anything to say.”

“That’s not true and you know it! Blanca, I thought—”

“You thought what?”

“I thought you liked me,” says Seth, his face looking pained. “I thought you were falling for me as hard as I was falling for you.”

“Well, you thought wrong.” I only wish that were the truth. “Cal said I should do whatever I had to, so that’s what I did.”

“Whatever you
had
to?” Seth runs his hand through his hair so it’s crazier than ever. Crazier in a good way. “Not
wanted
to?”

“A Vestal would never want a Virus,” I say, willing it to be true. And I try not to remember. I try not to think about lying next to Seth with his arms around me, feeling his heart beat next to mine.

Seth sits there, breathing heavily, like he’s fighting for some type of control.

I’m fighting for control too. There’s something inside me, hurting.

“I wonder if you know,” Seth finally says.

“Know what?”

“You’re costing him.” Seth says. “You’re costing my dad everything.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your purchase price? Your crazy antics last month? They’re pulling my dad away from his business.”

“What?” I’ve never given McNeal Solar Enterprises much thought.

“So enough with this Vestal shit,” Seth says loudly. “Keep your Ms. Lydia away from my dad so he can concentrate on his business. That company means everything to him.”

“Seth.” I reach out to his shoulder but he recoils from my touch. The missed contact burns. “I would never hurt your father. Never! Not on purpose, at least.”

But Seth is already getting up to go. Right before he leaves, he turns and glares at me to get in one more jab.

“You and your Vestal crap are ruining everything!”

I sit on the ottoman, too upset to move. It takes me a while before I realize that I still haven’t locked the deadbolt. But then I see that wall of mirrors and I remember something.

Seth may be wrong about practically everything, but he got one thing right. I’ve got a face that can sell soap.

Selling clean energy should be equally easy.

I’m going to be the face of McNeal Solar Enterprises and make things right.

Ms. Lydia’s tempo is grueling. Right hook, left hook, right jab, kick. She puts me through my paces this morning, like she has every day she’s been in town since the banquet. After Kenpō comes an hour of yoga. Then I’ll run around my courtyard like a lab rat for an hour. Only now nobody can see me, because Ms. Lydia insisted that Cal put shutters on the
outside
of the first-floor windows. I don’t know why that didn’t occur to me during crazy-month, but it didn’t. Now when I’m in the courtyard, I’m completely closed off.

Ms. Lydia thinks me being the face of McNeal Solar is the best idea ever, and she helped me talk Cal into it one day when we were swimming in the manor’s indoor pool.

“But we don’t do traditional advertisements,” Cal said, wading into the shallow end. “We rely on trade conventions.”

“Don’t you want McNeal Solar to have a fresh, clean image?” Ms. Lydia sat perched on the edge of the pool wearing an ivory maillot.

“Well, yes, but—”

“And you want McNeal Solar to be seen as trustworthy, right?”

“Yes, of course! But—”

“Then you’ve got to use Blanca!” Ms. Lydia argued. “She’s your best asset, and you haven’t used her properly yet.”

Cal winced. “I don’t want to
use
Blanca. I only want her to be happy.”

“Well, she’ll never be happy. Not unless you give her a purpose. That’s what Vestals live for.” Ms. Lydia kicked the water with her dainty foot, making a small splash. “Vestals can sell anything. Give Blanca a chance, Calum. You’ll be amazed.”

Cal still wasn’t convinced, so Ms. Lydia went at it from a different angle.

“Calum,” she said, sliding into the water. “It would make me so happy too. It would give me the opportunity to be here all the time. I’ll coach Blanca every step of the way. Please let
us
do this for you.”

“Fine.” Cal shrugged. “If this is what Blanca wants, I’ll say yes.”

“Yes! It’s exactly what I want!” I bounded off the diving board and cannonballed into the water, splashing them both.

“I can’t very well say no to both of you.” Cal laughed.

And that was the moment it started. Ms. Lydia has become so tangled up with me and Cal and our lives together at the manor that it’s become harder and harder to tell where one of our lives starts and the other’s ends. She’s always here, watching over me, keeping me safe.

“All this bread and butter!” she said at lunch one day. “You’re not going in front of the camera just yet, Blanca.”

Hence my new regime. It was a month before the first photo shoot.

Four hours a day of exercise and a strict fish-and-veggies diet. Cal’s been complaining a lot about my new meal plan, but it always gets smoothed over.

Ms. Lydia’s worked on Cal so hard that she practically leads him around on a leash.

“Calum, darling,” she told him, entwining her arms around him after a particularly Spartan dinner. “We like to be healthy. Don’t you want us to live a long time?”

Of course Cal couldn’t argue with that. He was sneaking some whole-wheat bread into my diet when Ms. Lydia wasn’t looking, but now she’s here at the manor practically all the time.

“Doesn’t it bother you, Calum, that there’s no place to be in this whole house that’s truly private?” I heard Ms. Lydia say to him one afternoon. “If there were some lead-lined walls, we could … ”

As soon as I heard that, I made a beeline for my room. I try not to think about what they might be doing together while I’m in the courtyard, running around in circles. It’s none of my business. But I’m ecstatic that Cal’s happy.

And he is happy. Ridiculously so! I’ve never seen Cal smile so hard as he does when Ms. Lydia comes into a room. She’s like sunshine on his heart.

The only bad thing is when the postal service comes with a letter for Ms. Lydia. Then she heads off for a couple of hours, or a couple of days. But she always comes back. When she does, Cal and I are both here waiting.

It’s almost like we’re our own Vestal family.

But I wish for Cal’s sake that Seth wasn’t such a troll. Since Ms. Lydia became part of things, Seth has pretty much stayed away. The one time Seth did show up for dinner, he and Ms. Lydia got into a huge fight over the proofs from my first photo shoot.

It was a picture of me wearing white yoga pants, doing the Scorpion pose in front of the newest McNeal Solar Enterprise factory. I was balancing on my forearms with my feet up in the air, hanging above my head. It was all very Zen. There was a warm glow over the whole picture and a caption that read
mcneal solar makes all things possible. ask for mcneal solar by name, just like blanca.

“I can’t believe you’re letting the Vestals worm their way into your business!” Seth said to Cal, like Ms. Lydia wasn’t sitting right there at the table. We were eating grilled salmon and roasted Brussel sprouts.

“Don’t be rude.” Cal smiled apologetically at Ms. Lydia. “Vestals are experts at advertising.”

Seth pushed a Brussel sprout around his plate with his fork. “What does yoga have to do with solar energy anyway? That’s stupid!”

“It’s not about yoga.” Ms. Lydia sat up straighter. “It’s about Blanca. She could be balancing a stack of dishes on her head, and it wouldn’t matter. People will buy whatever she sells.” Ms. Lydia was having a hard time staying placid. I could tell.

“That’s crazy!” Seth turned to Cal. “What happened to giving Blanca her own life back?”

“This
is
my life,” I said to Seth. “This is what I’ve always dreamed of. I’m going to be a traditional Vestal now.”

Seth’s voice dripped with disgust. “Everything always comes back to you and your weird Vestal shit.”

“Seth!” Cal said sharply. “Please—”

“Don’t bother.” Seth dropped his fork. “I’m done.”

That was a few weeks ago. We haven’t seen Seth since.

I keep watching Cal, thinking he’s going to be upset by this, but he’s not showing the hurt yet. I know being apart from Seth must be killing him. Seth was the whole reason Cal harvested me in the first place! I guess Ms. Lydia and I must be doing a pretty good job of filling the part of Cal that was so lonely for family.

Right hook, left hook, right jab, kick. Ms. Lydia is right, like always. This workout is evil, but in a good way. Sweat drips down my forehead, and I don’t bother to wipe it away.

“Higher, Blanca! Higher!” Ms. Lydia kicks along with me. Out here in the sunlight it’s easier to tell how old she is. She and Cal are probably the same age. Maybe Ms. Lydia’s even older.

“Okay,” she finally says. “Let’s get out the yoga mats.”

When we’re headfirst in Downward Dog, she starts talking about our plans for next week. “That print ad was merely the beginning, Blanca. People all over are calling up their local power company and asking for McNeal Solar by name. Calum can’t believe it!”

I smile as I slide down to Plank. “I guess Seth leaking the photo on
Veritas Rex
backfired on him, huh?”

“Let’s not talk about him. Viruses are beneath us.”

We both slip into Cobra, and the stretch feels good.

“Already you’ve been a game changer.” Ms. Lydia lifts her face to the sunshine. “Nobody ever thought of using a Vestal to advertise for energy before. Things are going to get bigger from now on. The commercial next week will take your image to a whole new level.”

Ms. Lydia’s probably right, like always. But the opportunity is fertile for humiliation.

“What if Trevor and I don’t have any chemistry on camera?” I ask.

“Fake it.” Ms. Lydia walks her feet up to the top of her yoga mat. She pauses for a minute and looks at me. “Lots of Vestals have their first public date on camera. It’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

But I’m still pretty nervous. I’m not shooting one commercial next week, I’m shooting two. One for McNeal Solar with Trevor popping in at the end. The other will be Trevor’s soap commercial with me in the final shot. Ms. Lydia has been arranging the deal for weeks.

By the next Vestal banquet, Trevor and I will be an established item.

There’s a knock from above. Cal leans out my window over the ladder, trying to get our attention. “Lydia,” he says, waving a white envelope and looking downcast. “You have a letter.”

Ms. Lydia told Cal a while ago about her being the elected agent for Vestals, so Cal knows that Ms. Lydia has a busy job brokering the deals for Vestal photo shoots. But that doesn’t stop the disappointment, for any of us, every time Ms. Lydia has to leave.

Ms. Lydia takes a deep breath and then rolls up her mat. “I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

“For how long this time?” I ask. “What about the commercial shoot? Will you still be there?”

Ms. Lydia shrugs. “Maybe.” She stares at the stone wall like she sees right through it.

“Ms. Lydia,” I ask, my voice low and respectful. “Do you want—”

But she interrupts me midsentence. “It doesn’t matter what I want.” She chucks her yoga mat into the redwood storage box. “I learned that a long time ago.”