Tumble & Fall (8 page)

Sienna lets her tongue run along the inside row of her bottom teeth. She’s never thought of them as perfect. She’s never thought of them as anything, except teeth.

“So.” Owen reaches around her to grab silverware. “What’d you think?”

“Ugh.” Carly groans. “Don’t interrogate her. If she wants us to know, she’ll tell us.”

Sienna smiles. “You guys were awesome,” she says. “Seriously.”

“Didn’t I tell you this girl can sing?” Owen wraps an arm around Carly’s waist and hugs her to his side. Sienna’s stomach does another surprising flip-flop and she can feel her heart clanging against her ribs. Across the room, another band is setting up, and Owen surveys the crowd. “Come on.” He gestures with a toss of his head. “These guys are great.”

Carly finishes piling her plate with hearty scoops from the various trays and follows him away from the buffet. Sienna stands as if glued to the floor, her empty paper plate still flapping in one hand. Owen turns around. “Coming?” he calls back.

Sienna shakes her head. “My brother’s over there somewhere,” she says, gesturing to the tables. “I should go find him.”

Owen smiles and waves, placing a protective hand on the small of Carly’s back and leading her through the groups of jostling fans. Sienna tosses her plate in the trash and looks around for the door.

*   *   *

What she really wants is a cigarette.

She found Dad and told him she wanted to leave, that she didn’t mind walking. It wasn’t far. But he insisted he was ready, too. Denise wanted dessert but then they could all head home. That was twenty minutes ago.

Sienna finds an old rope swing with a paddle seat, hung low from the branches of a towering oak. She gives the rope a good tug and sits down, pushing off with her heels.

She didn’t smoke until she got to the House, and even then it was only once in a while. The House was a mix of teenagers and college-age kids, and the over-eighteens were allowed to smoke in the courtyard with permission. Sienna would occasionally bum from one of them and sneak out late at night, when whatever staff was on duty had less of a chance of telling the difference.

She hated it at first, hated the taste and the chemical smell it left on her hands, but she liked the excuse it gave her to get outside. It was the one time of the day when she felt free.

From the dark shadows of the trees, Sienna sees Dad and Denise before they see her. Denise is carrying a plate full of leftovers, Dad’s walking close beside her. From here, they look like strangers, a happy couple she doesn’t know.

Sienna drags the tops of her feet and hops off the swing to the gravel. Dad turns at the sound. “There you are,” he calls. “Ryan’s washing his hands. Meet us at the car?”

Sienna nods and sticks her hands in the pockets of her shorts, watching as Dad and Denise shuffle slowly toward the back parking lot. She sits on the bottom step of the Community Center entrance, next to a sandwich-board sign that reads “All Are Welcome!”

Sienna takes her phone out of her pocket and checks the time. She’s starting to wonder why she doesn’t just wear a watch; she never uses the phone for anything else.

“You’d get better service out by the water.”

She turns over her shoulder to see Owen. He sits on the other side of the steps and passes her a paper plate. “Doughnut?”

Sienna tucks her phone back into her shorts. “No thanks,” she says, hugging her knees between the insides of her bony elbows.

“Come on,” Owen pleads. “They’re not popovers, but they’re still pretty good.”

Sienna smiles and relents, carefully picking up the sticky treat. It’s honey-glazed with rainbow sprinkles. She wonders if there has ever been a more disastrous food to eat in public.

“So, I had this idea.” Owen leans back against the concrete and stretches his long arms. He turns his head away, like he’s looking for someone. Sienna is grateful for the opportunity to take an unobserved bite.

“It might sound totally insane, or, like, random, or whatever … and, I mean, I haven’t really thought it through but I figured that’s probably okay. Do I really need to think everything through all the way? I mean, does that even make sense?”

Sienna stops chewing, a few sprinkles stuck to the outside of her lips. “What are you talking about?” she mumbles through a mouthful.

Owen turns to face her and she can tell that he’s trying not to laugh. “Well, first of all, you have frosting all over your face,” he says drily. Sienna swallows and shields the bottom half of her face with her hands.

“Second of all,” he says, cracking his knuckles one at a time, “I was thinking maybe we should go out sometime.”

Sienna licks the tips of her fingers and runs them along the corners of her mouth. “Go out?” she repeats.

“Yes,” Owen says softly. “Like. A date. Is that crazy?”

Sienna stops with one finger frozen near her lips. “A date?” she repeats. “Um, yes. That’s crazy.”

Owen looks away and his nose twitches, the few dark freckles stretching out across his skin. “Yeah,” he says. “You’re probably, like, really busy with family stuff, right? It’s not, like, the best time to just … hang out, I guess.”

Sienna stares at him.
Family stuff?
“I mean, it’s crazy because of Carly,” she says. She drops the doughnut on the plate and balances it on the step.

“Carly?” Owen asks. “What about Carly?”

“Aren’t you guys, like…” Sienna is whispering. She doesn’t know why.

Owen stares over her shoulder, the corner of his mouth pulling in. “Sienna,” he says softly. “There’s something I guess you don’t know about Carly.”

“Oh, yeah?” Sienna asks. “What’s that?”

“Let’s just say I’ve never really been her type.”

Sienna feels a hard laugh escaping and rolls her eyes. She knows these excuses. There were days when she used to feel like she
invented
these excuses. “Why?” she scoffs. “You guys are just better as friends? Or, let me guess: she never dates guys in the band.”

Owen hurries to his feet and stands in front of Sienna, so that she couldn’t move if she tried. “Yeah.” He nods. “All that. And she’s gay.”

“Who’s gay?”

Sienna turns and sees Ryan standing in the door. The light of the entryway behind him sticks to the top of his parted hair and casts the rest of his face in dark shadow. His arms are crossed and he’s glaring at them like they’ve done something wrong.

“Nobody,” Sienna says. “We were just … never mind.” She pushes herself up and holds out her hand. “Let’s go, Ry.”

Sienna reaches for Ryan’s shoulder, catching Owen’s eye over the top of her brother’s head. She smiles sheepishly, wishing she had more to say.

“Wait!” Ryan squeals, wriggling from Sienna’s grasp. “What about the president?”

“The president’s not gay,” Sienna assures him, steering him down the steps.

“I know that,” he insists. “But he’s about to make a speech.”

Ryan stops in his tracks and points through the window. Owen runs up the steps and peers inside. “It does look like people are waiting for something to happen.”

Sienna and Ryan follow him inside and they wait by the door. There’s a buzz in the crowd, a confused murmur as people stand in clusters facing the stage. They hear a high-pitched squealing noise, feedback from the speakers, and then a woman’s voice.

“Ladies and gentlemen, if I could have your attention for just a minute.” The woman is tall and thin. She clutches a clipboard to her chest and huddles at one corner of the stage. “My name is Miranda Lowe, I’m on the board of directors here at the Community Center, and…” She takes a deep breath and fiddles around with the microphone, sending more piercing feedback into the crowd. “I’m sorry about that, I’m just, I wanted to use this time to thank you for coming, but I’ve been told that the, uh, the president, is holding an emergency press conference. I figured it’s something you’d all want to hear, so … Daniel, if you would…”

Miranda nods offstage to a gray-haired man in a leather jacket, busy rigging up another microphone and holding it out to an old-fashioned boom box.

“What’s going on?” Sienna asks. Owen shakes his head and Sienna feels Ryan’s small hand slipping inside her own. A crackle fills the air, followed by loud, offensive static. The man plays with a knob until a clear, familiar voice comes through.

“Good evening.” The president’s voice is fierce and sudden, and a thick, reverent silence settles into every corner of the room. “As of six o’clock this evening, we have new information about the asteroid Persephone and her course. As many of you may be aware, under my authorization the Department of Defense has approved a new mission, in conjunction with NASA officials and the International Space Alliance: an attempt to deflect the asteroid away from a potential collision with our planet.”

There is a pause, a somewhere shuffling of papers. People turn their heads at similar angles, glancing around as if the president could very well be among them. On the radio, he clears his throat. “According to plans I have reviewed with my advisers and other world leaders, the B-eighty-three one-point-two-megaton nuclear-tipped rocket will be launched from a classified location shortly, and will indeed make contact with Persephone, exactly three days from today.”

There is a ripple through the crowd, people turning to their neighbors with questions in their eyes. Sienna feels a tightness closing in around her heart. Owen’s shoulder is pressed against hers, and she feels herself leaning into him just slightly. Up near the stage, there’s a celebratory shout, and a group of guys are slapping each other on the backs. They’re starting to get rowdy when somebody else across the room yells, “Quiet!”

The static is back and the president’s voice returns. This time, he sounds less certain and rehearsed, like he’s suddenly gone off script. “As you … as you know, there’s no way we can effectively predict what will happen from here. We can’t guarantee that even the most successful impact will destroy the asteroid completely. And there are, of course, risks involved. But we are … very … hopeful that this course of action is the single best chance we’ve been given to steer Persephone in a different direction.”

The high-pitched buzzing is back and all around the room people are cheering. On the stage the woman taps repeatedly into the microphone, and the man with the gray hair is waving his hands over his head. The president is still talking, but nobody cares. Sienna strains to listen.

“I must caution you all that there may be changes in the coming days. Persephone’s course has been tracked and studied for many, many years, and we now know, with what I’m afraid is great certainty, that if left unchecked, she will strike our planet in less than one week.”

Sienna feels Ryan’s fingers untangle from her wrist and she looks to see that Dad is there, too, lifting Ryan to his hip and whispering steadily into his hair. Sienna stands frozen and wonders what to do now with her hands. They’re shaking at her sides as she looks around the room. She remembers Owen and feels him shift beside her. She’s worried he might leave, worried she might fall if he moves, but he takes her hand and folds it inside his long fingers. She feels a heartbeat in her palm and doesn’t know if it’s his or her own.

“We have been given the gift of one more chance,” the president continues, his voice soft and still shaky. Sienna feels Owen squeeze her hand and she feels warm and, strangely, happy. Happy, for once, to be a part of something. To feel the things that other people are feeling. Happy to not be alone.

“I ask only that, whatever happens, you remain calm. How each of us handles the next few days, who we become and what we do, will be critically important as we are forced, as a nation, to face an uncertain tomorrow. God bless you all, and may God bless America.”

DAY THREE

ZAN

Zan takes the turn at the bottom of the hill, her feet settling into a steady rhythm as she starts up the narrow footpath. She untangles the delicate wires of her headphones from around her elbow, careful not to dislodge the tiny white earbuds as she keeps her comfortable pace.

The streets are empty and the air is morning-cool. There are few cars on the road, not another person on the path. Normally, this section of the road is congested with a mix of recreational bikers and people on their way to the pharmacy or grocery store. But as soon as she stepped outside, she could tell that something was different. She knows it’s because of the announcement. People aren’t sure whether to be quietly relieved, or riotously excited, or if they should simply just hunker down and wait. She wasn’t sure either, when she woke up. It’s why she decided to run.

That, and the fact that there was no way she could handle being around her parents, each lost in uniquely dysfunctional methods of denying that anything at all was amiss. Daniel locked himself in his studio as soon as they’d gotten home last night, working furiously on his latest project. “The Forgiving Wheel,” he’s calling it. For her part, Miranda will be spending the next few days much the way she spends every day. At least, every day since Joni left. Making lists. Making plans. In times of uncertainty, she wants to feel useful and needed.

Usually, Zan listens to music while she runs. Something upbeat, something she can get lost in, something to make her forget how far she’s gone or how long it will take her to get back home. She needs the music, because running isn’t enough. She doesn’t do it for the escape, the way some people say they do—in fact, she’s found it almost impossible to be so alone with her thoughts since Leo died. But the movement is what her body craves, like stretching after a long car ride, or being underwater and coming up for air. If she goes more than a few days without lacing up her sneakers and at least jogging down to the beach, her legs tingle and her skin feels too tight.

She’d had another restless night of half-dreaming, strange involuntary visions that sometimes haunt the foggy space between awake and asleep. Every time she closed her eyes she’d see Leo in the distance. As she walked toward him—she was always walking toward him, he was always standing still—she’d realize that something was off. He was wearing an unfamiliar piece of clothing, like a cup-brimmed baseball hat he’d never be caught dead in, or a stiff, three-piece suit. One time, when she got close enough to see his face, he looked back at her with different-colored eyes, one his own, bright blue, and the other pale and milky, the soggy white of a half-cooked egg.