The Leftovers (30 page)

*   *   *

KEVIN FELT
a brief flutter of suspense when the show was over and Nora closed her notebook.

“Excuse me.” She covered her mouth, politely stifling a yawn. “I’m a little tired.”

“Me, too,” he admitted. “It’s been a long day.”

“It’s so cold out.” She gave a sympathetic shudder. “I’m sorry you have to go.”

“I don’t
have
to,” he reminded her. “I’d love to stay here. I’ve been missing you.”

Nora gave this some thought.

“Pretty soon,” she told him. “I just need a little more time.”

“We don’t have to do anything. We could just keep each other company. Just talk until we fall asleep.”

“I’m sorry, Kevin. I’m really not up for it.”

Of course you are,
he wanted to tell her.
Don’t you remember what it was like? How could you not be up for that?
But he knew it was hopeless. The moment you started pleading your case, you’d already lost it.

She walked him to the door and kissed him good night, a chaste but lingering send-off that felt like an apology and a rain check at the same time.

“Can I call you tomorrow?” he asked.

“Sure,” she said. “Call me tomorrow.”

*   *   *

NORA LOCKED
the door and carried the wineglasses to the sink. Then she went upstairs and got ready for bed.

I’m a terrible girlfriend,
she thought as she brushed her teeth.
I don’t know why I even bother.

It was embarrassing, knowing that it was all her fault, that she’d volunteered for the position and misled Kevin into giving her the job. She was the one who’d invited him to Florida, after all, the one who’d managed to impersonate a functional, relatively cheerful human being for five days. By the end of the vacation, she’d almost started to believe that she actually
was
a functional, reasonably cheerful human being—the kind of person who might hold hands with another person under the table, or feed that other person little forkfuls of dessert—so she could hardly blame him for sharing in that misconception, or feeling confused and betrayed when she took it all back.

But she wasn’t that person, not here in Mapleton anyway, not even close, and there was no use hiding from the truth. She had no love to give Kevin or anyone else, no joy or energy or insight. She was still broken, still missing some crucial parts. This knowledge had almost crushed her when she got back home, the unsupportable weight of her own existence, a lead-lined cape draped across her frail shoulders.
Welcome home, Nora.
It seemed so much heavier than she remembered, so much more oppressive, which was apparently the price you paid for sneaking out from under it for a few days.
Did you have a nice trip?

THE OUTPOST

ON A WINDLESS MORNING IN
late January, with light snow sifting down, Laurie and Meg walked from Ginkgo Street to their new quarters on Parker Road, a quiet residential enclave on the eastern edge of Greenway Park.

Outpost 17 was small, but nicer than Laurie had expected, a dark blue Cape Cod, dormered, with white trim around the windows. Instead of a concrete path, a walkway of clay-colored paving stones led to the main entrance. The only thing she didn’t like was the front door itself, which looked a little too ornate for the rest of the house, gleaming brown wood with an elongated oval of smoked decorative glass cut into it, the kind of thing you’d expect to see on a McMansion in Stonewood Heights, not a modest Mapleton dwelling like this one.

“It’s cute,” Meg whispered.

“Could be a lot worse,” Laurie agreed.

They liked it even better once they saw the inside. The downstairs was cozy without feeling cramped, enlivened by lots of nice little touches—a gas fireplace in the living room, area rugs with bold geometric designs, comfortable mix-and-match furniture. The high point was the renovated kitchen, a bright open space with stainless steel appliances, a restaurant-quality stove, and a window over the sink that looked out on a soothing vista of wooded parkland, the bare tree limbs frosted with a thin layer of white powder. Laurie could easily imagine her old self standing at the soapstone counter on a weekend afternoon, chopping vegetables while NPR murmured in the background.

The tour was guided by their new housemates, a pair of middle-aged men who’d answered the door with homemade name tags affixed to their shirts. “Julian” was tall and a bit stooped, with round, wire-framed glasses and a pointy nose that seemed to sniff inquisitively at the air. His face was clean-shaven, an anomaly in the G.R. “Gus” was a stocky, red-haired guy with a ruddy complexion; his beard was neatly trimmed, generously flecked with gray.

Welcome,
he wrote on a communication pad.
We’ve been waiting for you.

Laurie felt uneasy, but did her best to ignore it. She’d known the outposts could be coed, but hadn’t anticipated anything quite so intimate, two men and two women sharing a small house on the edge of the woods. But if that was the assignment, then so be it. She understood what an honor it was to be selected for the Neighborhood Settlement Program—it was at the heart of the G.R.’s long-term expansion plans—and wanted to prove herself worthy of the trust that had been placed in her by the leadership, who were undoubtedly doing the best they could with the resources at their disposal.

Besides, she and Meg would have the whole second floor to themselves—two small bedrooms and a shared bathroom—so privacy shouldn’t be a problem. Meg chose the pink room overlooking the street; Laurie took the yellow one with the park view, which had probably belonged to a teenager. The bed—it looked like it came from IKEA—was built low to the floor, a thin, futon-style mattress resting inside a frame of blond wood. The walls were bare, but you could see the empty spaces where some posters had recently hung, three rectangles slightly brighter than the space that surrounded them.

She’d only brought one suitcase—all her worldly belongings—and got unpacked in a matter of minutes. It felt anticlimactic somehow—more like checking into a hotel than settling into a new home—almost enough to make her nostalgic for the hectic moving days of her previous life: the weeks of preparation, the boxes and the tape and the markers, the big truck pulling up, the anxiety of watching your whole life disappear into its maw. And then the reverse peristalsis on the other end, all those boxes coming back out, the thud when they landed on the floor, the shriek when you ripped them open. The weird letdown of a new house, that nagging sense of dislocation that feels like it’ll never go away. But at least you knew in your gut that something momentous had happened, that one chapter in your life had ended and another had begun.

A year,
she used to say.
It takes a year to really feel at home. And sometimes longer than that.

After she’d placed her clothes in the chest of drawers—also blond, also IKEA—she stayed on her knees for a long time, not praying, just thinking, trying to get her mind around the fact that she lived here now, that this place was home. It helped to know that Meg was nearby, just a few steps away. Not quite as close as in Blue House, where they’d shared a room, but close enough, closer than she could reasonably have hoped for.

*   *   *

AS A
general rule, friendships were discouraged within the G.R. The organization was structured to prevent people from spending too much time together or relying too much on specific individuals for their social sustenance. In the Ginkgo Street Compound, members lived in large groups that were frequently reshuffled; jobs were rotated on a regular basis. Watchers were paired up by lottery and rarely worked with the same partner twice in a single month. The point was to strengthen the connection between the individual and the group as a whole, not between one individual and another.

This policy made sense to Laurie, at least in theory. People were extremely vulnerable when they joined the G.R. After expending so much energy tearing themselves away from their old lives, they were dazed and exhausted and deeply vulnerable. Without proper guidance, it was all too easy for them to lapse into familiar patterns, to unwittingly re-create the relationships and behavior patterns they’d left behind. But if they were allowed to do that, they’d miss out on the very thing they’d come for: a chance to start over, to strip away the false comforts of friendship and love, to await the final days without distractions or illusions.

The main exception to this policy was the highly charged relationship between Trainer and Trainee, which the organization tended to view as a necessary evil, a statistically effective but emotionally perilous strategy for easing new members into the fold. The problem wasn’t so much the formation of an intense, exclusive bond between the two individuals involved—that was the whole point—as it was the trauma of dissolving this bond, of separating two people who had essentially become a unit.

It was the Trainer’s job to prepare the Trainee for this eventuality. From the very beginning, Laurie had stuck to the protocol, reminding Meg on a daily basis that their partnership was temporary, that it would come to an end on January 15th—Graduation Day—at which point Meg would become a full-fledged member of the Mapleton Chapter of the Guilty Remnant. From then on, the two of them would be colleagues, not friends. They would treat each other with common courtesy—nothing more, nothing less—and strictly adhere to their vows of silence in each other’s company.

She’d tried her best, but it hadn’t done either of them much good. As the end of Meg’s probation approached, they grew increasingly agitated and depressed. There were several nights that ended with one or both of them in tears, lamenting the unfairness of the situation, wondering why they couldn’t just go on living as they had, sticking to an arrangement that was working fine for both of them. In a way, it was worse for Laurie, because she knew exactly what she was returning to—a crowded room in Gray House, or maybe Green, a sleeping bag on a cold floor, long nights without a friend nearby to help pass the time, nothing to keep her company but the frightened voice in her own head.

*   *   *

A WEEK
EARLIER,
on the morning of Meg’s Graduation Day, they’d reported to the Main House with heavy hearts. Before setting off, they’d hugged each other for a long time and reminded themselves to be brave.

“I won’t forget you,” Meg promised, her voice soft, a bit hoarse.

“You’ll be fine,” Laurie whispered, not even convincing herself. “We both will.”

Patti Levin, the first and only Director of the Mapleton Chapter, was waiting in her office, sitting like a high school principal behind an enormous beige desk. She was a petite woman with frizzy gray hair and a stern but surprisingly youthful face. She gestured with her cigarette, inviting them to sit down.

“It’s the big day,” she said.

Laurie and Meg remained silent. They were only allowed to speak in response to a direct question. The Director studied them, her face alert but expressionless.

“I see you’ve been crying.”

There was no sense denying it. They’d barely slept and had spent a good part of the night in tears. Meg looked like a wreck—hair tangled, eyes raw and puffy—and Laurie had no reason to believe she looked any better.

“It’s hard!” Meg blurted out like a heartbroken teenager. “It’s just really hard!”

Laurie winced at the breach of decorum, but the Director let it pass. Pinching her cigarette between thumb and forefinger, she brought it to her mouth and sucked hard on the filter, as if it weren’t drawing right, squinting with grim determination.

“I know,” she said on the exhale. “It’s the path we’ve chosen.”

“Is it always this bad?” Meg sounded like she was about to start crying again.

“Sometimes.” The Director shrugged. “It’s different for different people.”

Now that Meg had broken the ice, Laurie decided it was okay to speak up.

“It’s my fault,” she explained. “I didn’t do my job. I got too attached to my Trainee and let things get out of hand. I really screwed up.”

“That’s not true!” Meg protested. “Laurie’s a great mentor.”

“It’s our fault, too,” the Director admitted. “We could see what was happening. We probably should have separated you two a month ago.”

“I’m sorry.” Laurie forced herself to meet the Director’s eyes. “I’ll try to do better next time.”

Patti Levin shook her head. “I don’t think there’s going to be a next time.”

Laurie didn’t argue. She knew she didn’t deserve a second chance. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted one, not if she was going to feel like this when it was over.

“Please don’t hold it against Meg,” she said. “She’s worked really hard these past couple of months and made a lot of progress, in spite of my mistakes. I really admire her strength and determination. I know she’s going to be a great asset to the Chapter.”

“Laurie taught me so much,” Meg chimed in. “She’s just a really good role model, you know?”

Mercifully, the Director let that pass. In the silence that followed, Laurie found herself staring at the poster on the wall behind the desk. It showed a classroom full of adults and children, all of them dressed in white, all of them with their hands in the air, like eager A students. Every raised hand held a cigarette.

WHO WANTS TO BE A MARTYR?
the caption asked.

“I guess you’ve noticed that it’s a little crowded around here,” the Director told them. “We keep getting new recruits. In some of the houses we’ve got people sleeping in the hallways and the garages. It’s just not a sustainable situation.”

For a miserable moment or two, Laurie wondered if she was being kicked out of the G.R. to make room for someone more worthy than herself. But then the Director glanced at a sheet of paper on her desk.

“You’re being transferred to Outpost 17,” she said. “You move in next Tuesday.”

Laurie and Meg exchanged wary glances.

“Both of us?” Meg asked.

The Director nodded. “That’s your preference, right?”