Vivian Apple Needs a Miracle (2 page)

A furious gust of cold wind makes Harp shudder, and she nods at the coffee shop we're about to pass. “Let's check this out.”

Inside are high ceilings and white walls covered in ugly oil paintings of naked women, overlaid with text from the Book of Frick:
SHE SHALL BE BURNT WITH FIRE
. I think the art's meant to be ironic, but remembering the foreboding statues outside Frick's compound—Peter's father, Adam Taggart, burning a group of women alive—I can't find much humor in it. Everyone here is hunched over a laptop. According to a chalkboard hanging from the ceiling, the cheapest option is plain black coffee for eight dollars.

“There's no way we can afford this!” I catch the eye of the bespectacled barista and see her skeptical assessment of my torn jeans, my messy hair, the broken hand I'm cradling.

“I know,” Harp says, guiltily fishing a ten-dollar bill from her pocket. “But I was freezing out there—and it's not like we have anywhere to go.”

She orders a drink and we wedge ourselves at a table next to an older man reading the news on his laptop. We pass the coffee back and forth, taking tiny sips. I've never liked the taste, and it seems especially bitter right now.

“The first thing we need to do is get to Peter,” I say. “Hopefully he managed to get his dad and”—I hesitate to say the name
Frick
, aware of the man at the next table—“his dad's boss to safety. Once we have them, making the truth public will be easy.”

Harp stares deep into the coffee and doesn't speak the reservations I can tell she has.

“At the very least,” I continue, “we need to figure out what the corporation has planned for the next Rapture, and what they have planned for the apocalypse. They're clearly willing to kill to make their myths seem true.”

“We should figure out who the Three Angels actually are,” Harp notes. “If we knew, we might understand better what they want to accomplish.”

I nod, remembering the people who appeared on the screen in Frick's compound, dressed as angels, ordering him to do their bidding. Two men: one bald and a little pudgy, the other thin with light-gray eyes. One severe-looking blond woman. We assume they work for the corporation, but we don't know their names or positions. Harp clears her throat.

“I know this isn't an ideal solution—” she begins.

But I shake my head. “I'm not going to Winnie's.”

“Viv, I get it, I do. You did a big dramatic walkout on your mom and you don't want to come crawling back three hours later. But we don't have a ton of options here. If we're going to do this, we'll need a car. We'll need a place to sleep tonight.”

“No, Harp. I made a choice.” She sighs in exasperation and looks away, but I continue. “I won't be the person I used to be, and I don't trust myself not to revert back to her when my mother's around. I want to move forward, okay? There has to be somewhere else. A shelter, maybe. Somewhere we can rest without getting caught in the ongoing implosion of my family.”

Harp doesn't reply. Her attention has wandered to the screen of the man beside us. I'm about to make a crack about her undiagnosed attention deficit disorder when I realize her expression has gone twisted and scared.

“Harp?”

She glances at me. “That's a great deal they have right now.” Her voice is broad and loud. “Buy one caramel macchiato, get a thousand Twitter followers free. What a bargain!”

A group of girls to our left goes quiet, then they leap to their feet. On our right, the man abandons his laptop to storm the counter, along with the occupants of nearby tables. Others, sensing a trend, get up and form a line, much to the alarm of the barista.

“Harp, what—”

“Shhh!” She grabs the abandoned laptop, spinning it so I can see the screen.

The Church of America's news feed is dominated by an enormous headline written in blood-red type, surrounded by animations of enraged-looking angels tossing 3-D thunderbolts at the viewer to underscore the seriousness of the situation:

E
NEMIES TO SALVATION:
I
MMORAL AND DANGEROUS

 

C
HURCH OFFERS REWARD OF
$1
MILLION PLUS GUARANTEED SALVATION TO ANYONE WITH INFORMATION ON WHEREABOUTS

 

T
HOSE FOUND AIDING OR ABETTING THESE FELONS WILL FACE SEVERE JUDGMENT WHEN THE APOCALYPSE COMES

 

WANTED ALIVE

I've never seen the Church target anyone this aggressively; all the enemies of their early days—liberal politicians, gay pop stars, feminist scholars—they'd simply undermine on the feed and sue into oblivion when the targets fought back. But this sounds like they want someone captured, like they want someone handed over. This headline makes the Church seem like the law. I feel an uneasy prickling at the nape of my neck, because I'm beginning to understand what I'll see when Harp scrolls down.

The picture is grainy black-and-white, magnified from the security feed in Beaton Frick's compound, but you can recognize us easily: a short Indian girl with messy dark hair, a taller white one with bangs in her eyes. Harp and me. Our faces. We're unmistakable.

And we're everywhere.

The coffee shop is too bright, too crowded. I feel heat emanating from my cheeks, like my face is glowing, a beacon. My brain sends some urgent message to my legs, and before I fully realize it, I'm up and through the door. I hear Harp scrambling to her feet, but I don't wait. Every second we hesitate we become more visible.

Outside, the wind picks up, scattering dust, stinging my eyes with cold. I try to tuck into myself, to shrink. I don't know where I'm going—my instinct is just to get away from that screen. But I must be on thousands of them by now. Walking past these buildings, I glance into open windows and see the ghostly bluish glow of screens inside; it seems impossible they could show anything but my face, spreading like a virus through links on Twitter and Facebook, until every person in America has it memorized.

I've reached the end of the block before Harp catches up. I notice a laptop under her arm that she did not have when we walked into the coffee shop.

“I know,
I know,
” she mutters. “I'm aware that petty larceny is not the most inconspicuous way to handle this development, but I panicked, okay?”

I pick up my pace, steering us down a side street—darker, uphill, lined by trees. I don't want the laptop's owner to catch up. My hand throbs. The posting of our faces means no hospital for me. No motels, no stopping at a gas station to ask directions. No food. I didn't realize until this moment how good we'd had it, being anonymous. I didn't realize how much we'd been able to get done. Realistically, I think, we have a small window—maybe until the evening news. After that, our best hope will be to split up. The Church's reach is wider than anyone's—there's no way the two of us together are getting out of this city alive.

“Look, Apple.” Harp pauses to catch her breath. “We're in deep shit here. I know you're Vivian 2.0 now; I know you want to move forward. But we need to hide, quickly, before we bump into someone who's seen the feed. Do you think your sister would keep us safe?”

I press my palms to my face—partly to think, partly to feel less exposed. “I don't know. I barely spoke to her. I didn't exactly get a fugitive-abetting vibe from her. She seemed like kind of a goody-goody. She quoted the Bible at me. But I guess I don't think she's actually a Believer. And anyway, my mom will vouch for us. She'll want to keep me safe. But it might only be a temporary solution.”

“A temporary solution is better than nothing,” Harp says.

“I know. But if Winnie can't be trusted, we'll need a backup plan.” I finally lower my hands to look at Harp's worried face. “We'll borrow money from my mom—she's got to have something, right? Then we'll make our way back to Wambaugh's parents' house.”

It seems hard to believe that the last time we saw my old history teacher was just yesterday morning, in Sacramento. So much has happened since. But Wambaugh will know we're not actually dangerous; Wambaugh will keep us safe. My head runs through other possibilities—we could return to Keystone and again seek shelter with the New Orphans, among them our old friend Edie; we could move east, searching for anyone who knows us well enough to trust us. But that number is far fewer now. Raj is dead. Dylan Marx, his old boyfriend, is missing. Even if my grandparents survived the hurricane that devastated New York in May, it's highly doubtful they want to see me. If Winnie's apartment doesn't work out, Sacramento is the best option we have.

“Okay.” Harp touches my elbow. “Let's move.”

I lead us to the top of the hill. I recognize the park ahead, gray-blue in the gathering dusk—we're on Winnie's block again. This morning I walked up to her building, hopeful at the prospect of a sister. But then Mom was there. I still feel a flicker of distrust toward them both, jealous of the bond they've shared these last months, while I mourned a mother I thought was gone forever. But I'm too afraid to let that hold me back. Cars zoom between the park and us, and as their drivers switch on their headlights, we're illuminated in the glow. We keep our chins tucked in to our chests and sprint to Winnie's building. I try the door—locked—and then I press the buzzer for apartment 3.

Silence for a long moment, then a crackle of static. My mother's uneasy voice hits me like a blow. “Hello?”

“Mom,” I say. “It's Viv. I'm out here with Harp and we need your help.”

Immediately, the buzzer sounds. I push open the door and we burst into the lobby; we retrace my footsteps from this morning. A few hours ago I left my mother here without telling her where I was going, but now she stands at the top of the steps, waiting for us in Winnie's doorway. She wears a blouse buttoned to the collar, and her long red-blond hair hangs loose around her shoulders. It's still a shock to see her alive, after months of trying to get used to her being gone, but I let out a breath I've been holding—we're safe. It's not until I'm eye to eye with her that I notice the expression of intense anxiety on my mother's face.

“What did you do?”

She seems paralyzed with fear, and I stop short. The hair on the back of my neck stands up, the way it did once a few months before the Rapture, when she caught me sneaking in after a tipsy night with Harp—the anticipation of imminent punishment.

“Your face,” my mother continues. “Your face is on the Church of America news feed.”

“I know. It's a big misunderstanding,” I assure her, hoping I sound convincing. “We need to lie low a day or two. I swear we'll get it sorted out.”

“What kind of a misunderstanding?” My mother seems at the point of tears. “They're offering a reward, Vivian! A million dollars! This is serious!”

I hesitate. I know I should tell her the truth. But a small part of me fears she's not strong enough to hear it—I fear the news that the Church of America helped kill my father will destroy her. And a bigger part imagines that even if I tell her the truth, she won't believe me. She won't want to believe me. I'm trying to think of another way to dodge the question, but then my mother's face softens. She steps forward and lays her palm against my cheek.

“Listen. You don't have to tell me now. Come inside and settle down. When Winnie gets home, I'll come up with something to tell her—but I know she'll want to help protect you. We'll figure something out, okay? We'll figure this out together.”

I nod and move into the apartment, but I quickly realize my mother has not moved with me. She stays in the doorway, blocking Harp's entrance. Over her shoulder, I see Harp's eyes grow wide.

“Mom,” I say. “Let her in.”

“I don't know if that's a good idea, Vivian.”

Her voice is quiet, but firm. I move forward and put my hand on her arm. I try to pull her away so Harp can pass through, but my mother doesn't budge. My best friend takes a step back, the fear draining from her expression. A cold resentment takes its place.

“It's not Harp's fault,” I say. “What we did was my idea. Okay? If you're going to protect me, you have to protect her, too.”

I watch my mother struggle with this. She's never been Harp's biggest fan—“a little too much,” she called her just this morning—and I know she's got some lingering Believer in her.
“Honor the Church above all earthly things,”
the Book of Frick says,
“and beyond it your own flesh and blood only. Man has no obligation to fight the wolves scratching at his neighbor's door.”
It's not a guarantee my mother would let Harp in even if Harp were an upstanding young citizen, a badge-earning Girl Scout.

“I can't!” Mom practically whispers now. “Vivian, what if they find out I took her in? I could still make it onto the second boat. I could see Ned again. I can't risk that!”

“It's fine!” Harp interjects before I can argue. She tightens her grip on the laptop. “I'll figure something out. I really hope you make it to heaven, Mrs. Apple.”

I watch her turn on her heel and stalk down the steps, and though I call her name, I hear the front door slam behind her. I push past my mother to follow, but she grabs my arm.

“Sweetheart, please! Stay. Let me help you work this out. We'll call the Church of America hotline. I'm sure we can convince them you're no threat to them.”

I'm still, disbelieving. “Harp's my best friend.”

“I know, honey.” Her eyebrows pinch together—she looks, more than anything else, like she pities me. “But she's more trouble than she's worth.”

“How can you say that? You don't even know her!”