After the Fall Page 4

  “Me or someone else,” she says evenly, a certain wariness entering her voice. She crosses her arms across her chest. “Whoever’s around.”

  The room begins to close in on me. The air turns to soup in my lungs. I am drowning in a sea of my own making. I must make her go.

  “You know, if you wanted my shirt off, all you had to do was ask. You didn’t need to invent an excuse to get me naked, sweetheart.”

  I am acting like the oversexed man-child I used to see on my lunch breaks, belching obscenities and catcalls at women as they walked down the street. I am not this person, this foolish coward who would create a façade and use it to make someone hate me, so I can tell myself it isn’t me she hates at all. Except I am exactly this person.

  The old me would have just asked her to leave so I could be alone in my discomfort. The old me would have never been uncomfortable in the first place. But that me, apparently, died somewhere on the road to Indiana.

  I wait for some kind of reaction, but Kate’s face remains neutral. She stands there, and I can’t read anything in her eyes that will tell me precisely how disgusted she is.

  Finally, without a word or a change in her expression, she turns and walks over to the door. I can’t stop my gaze from dropping to the ground or my head from shaking back and forth at what an asshole I am.

  I expect to hear the door. I don’t expect to hear her voice.

  “You know, for the record, you’re not naked.”

  She is leaning against the doorframe, her right thumb casually wrapped around a belt loop. I try to grasp what is happening but come up empty. She was supposed to have fled the room. She was supposed to hate me. She is not supposed to be doing whatever it is she’s doing.

  “And by the way,” she says, her lips sliding into a grin that would have left my knees quivering if I wasn’t completely bumfuzzled, “the next time I want your shirt off, I won’t have to ask.”

  And she really wasn’t supposed to say that.

  “Dinner’s in an hour.”

  With that she is gone, and I am left alone to wonder how she turned the tables on me, and why.

  Chapter Seven

  Duncan stood outside Taylor’s door, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his most presentable pair of jeans. He had been standing there for quite a few minutes, not really sure what to do next.

  He still was unclear as to why Buck had asked him, of all people, to go and fetch Taylor for supper. Not that Duncan minded the chore. Not that it was even a chore, really. It was just that he had not even actually met Taylor yet, not officially, but he was supposed to knock on her door and say…what? “Hi, you don’t know me, but Buck sent me to pick you up for dinner?”

  Duncan figured he would be lucky if she did not deck him.

  Well, maybe he did not really think she would deck him, although he had a strong sense that she could and totally would if properly motivated. After thinking about it for a second, Duncan decided that maybe it really was as simple as telling her Buck had sent him. As for why Buck had picked Duncan, it was not like Buck did not randomly assign duties to everyone, so Duncan supposed it was not really all that unusual. Still…

  Oh, quit your chicken-shitting and knock on the damn door already.

  And so he knocked.

  And he waited.

  Nothing. Not even the shuffle of a foot or the squeak of a bedspring.

  He knocked again.

  And he waited. Again.

  Still nothing.

  “You looking for something?”

  Duncan jumped. Behind him stood Taylor, arms folded across her chest, towel slung across her shoulder, resting up against the wall.

  “Shit, you scared me,” Duncan said, cursing himself again, this time for cursing.

  If the guys could see me now, they’d be laughing at me for sure.

  Taylor cocked her head to the side like a dog studying a stranger.

  “I’m Taylor,” she said finally.

  “Duncan,” he said, reaching out his hand and gripping hers in return. She shook firmly but not too forcefully. Duncan liked a firm handshake. It reminded him of his daddy. “But you can call me Dunk.”

  Shit. Now why’d you go and tell her that dumb-ass nickname? She’s gonna think you’re some stupid kid.

  “A lot of people call you that?” she asked, letting go of his hand. There was no hint of mockery in her tone, just curiosity.

  “A few,” he said as she stepped around him and let herself into her room. “Mostly my parents growing up. My mom thought it was cute, I guess.”

  She nodded thoughtfully, setting her towel down on the bed.

  “I always thought it was kind of stupid,” he added, wanting to say it before she could.

  “Then why do you use it?” she asked. “If you think it’s kind of stupid?”

  He thought it over.

  “Honestly, I don’t know,” he said finally. “I guess it’s just what I know. Who I am. You know?”

  “Well, if it’s who you are, then it seems like you should be proud of it.”

  Duncan thought about that, too. He just did not know how to respond.

  “What can I do for you?” Taylor asked, changing the subject. She turned her back on him and started shuffling through the backpack on the bed. Although her voice gave away nothing, Duncan thought he detected discomfort, a certain stiffness in her shoulders that betrayed her seeming nonchalance.

  “Uh, well, you see we were all having dinner, and Buck noticed you weren’t there, so he sent me to come and get you.”

  “I thought I’d skip it, thanks,” she said, her voice a bit more quiet than it had been. She continued riffling through her bag, and it seemed to Duncan she was not quite looking for something in a fairly obvious attempt to seem occupied, and he wondered why. He knew, though, that asking her outright was not going to get him anywhere he wanted to go.

  “Well, you sure are missing out,” he said in his most enthusiastic voice. “Tonight we’ve got barbecue with all the fixings, like potatoes and biscuits and—”

  “I get it. There’s a lot of food,” Taylor said. Duncan thought he heard the faintest hint of a chuckle in her voice. At least, he hoped that was what he was hearing. He pressed on.

  “Definitely lots of food, or at least what passes for lots these days. One of the benefits of living on a farm, and Franny—that’s our resident cook—makes a pretty good meal. She must know fifty things to do with corn. We’re usually a little short on meat, which kind of sucks. A lot of the guys are always complaining about that, but Buck says if we slaughter all the cows and chickens, then we lose the milk and eggs, and those go a lot further than meat. Some of them go out hunting every now and then. Most of the time they don’t get much beyond a couple of rabbits or birds, but a couple days ago they managed to bring back a deer, hence tonight’s barbecue. And that’s not the best part.”

  He felt a little bit like one of those cheesy game show hosts his momma used to watch sometimes, minus the sleaze factor, but it was working. At least it had gotten her attention. She finally stopped messing with the bag and turned to look at him. He swore he could see interest in her eyes, and was that her stomach he heard rumbling?

  “No?”

  “Oh no. After we’ve all finished eating, we clear the tables and put on some music and dance until our feet hurt!”

  “Sounds very…aerobic,” Taylor said, a hint of sarcasm lacing her words. Whether it was a reaction to what he had described or how he had described it, Duncan was not sure, but he knew what it meant. He was losing her, and although he did not know why, he felt compelled to get her to agree to come to the barn.

  “No, it’s really a lot of fun. Sometimes Buck pulls out his guitar and jams with a few of the other guys, some really great bluegrass stuff.”

  Something flashed across Taylor’s face, but as quickly as it had come it was gone. She turned back to digging in her bag.

  “Look, it sounds nice and all, but—”

  “It’
s really not as dumb as it sounds,” he rushed on. “I mean, everyone needs a break, right—”

  “Duncan—”

  “And the food’s really good, and everyone’s laughing and happy—”

  “Duncan—”

  “And I can tell you don’t really like bluegrass, but there’s other kinds of music too and—”

  “Duncan—”

  “And sometimes Kate sings and you should really come.”

  Taylor stopped interrupting. Duncan drew in a deep breath, unsure of what her reaction meant. Taylor spoke quietly.

  “Kate sings?”

  “Yeah,” he said excitedly. “She’s got a voice like an angel. It’s really something.” He looked at her curiously, then added, “You know Kate?”

  “We’ve met,” she said simply. Taylor looked down at herself, then back up at Duncan. “Am I dressed okay?”

  She almost sounded like a kid, Duncan thought.

  “Yeah, you’re fine. It’s all pretty informal,” he said, ignoring the fact that he had specifically chosen his nicest jeans and shirt for the evening. He did not want her to feel bad.

  Taylor smiled awkwardly, like it had been a long time since she had smiled, so long that she might have almost forgotten how. He filed it away in the growing catalog of things he wondered about Taylor.

  “Okay, then,” she said, slapping Duncan on the back and opening the door. “Lead on, Dunk.”

  Duncan smiled. He liked the way she said his name.

  Chapter Eight

  I should get my head examined. If shrinks were as plentiful now as they had been before the plague, I think I would take the time to seek one out. But just like the poets, the plague seems to have taken all the shrinks. And the soldiers. And the writers and cops and astronomers and clowns. I miss the clowns. Has there ever been a time when we were more in need of clowns? Truth is, I’m sure some of the people who used to fill those roles survived—the plague didn’t discriminate based on profession, only by gender. But somehow, I doubt clowns had the skill set or fortitude for survival. Then again, maybe dealing with snotty-faced, screaming children every day gave clowns exactly the survival skills needed to live in a post-plague world.

  Last I heard, nearly five billion people are dead. Governments have collapsed, electricity and water are gone, unless you are lucky enough—or smart enough—to have found another way. Buck is one of those people. Between the solar panels and the well that taps into the natural spring beneath the eastern edge of the property, the farm is much better off than so many other places I’ve been.

  Which brings me back to the current state of my sanity. The simple fact that I haven’t had a hot meal in weeks should have been enough to quell any other voice in my head. The promise of food other than whatever canned goods I managed to pilfer from abandoned houses or the more-helpful-than-harmful survivors I’ve sometimes crossed paths with should have made my choice clear. And yet, before Dunk had shown up, I’d made some half-assed decision to avoid dinner.

  I follow Dunk to the mess hall, claim my heaping plate of food, and soothe the rumbling that has been shaking my belly for what seems like forever. I ignore the stares I can feel burning into my skin, choosing instead to keep my head low and focus on what is mine. I stay in my corner with Dunk, responding to his well-meaning attempts at small talk with a well-placed nod or grunt here and there. It isn’t as if he is annoying me, or even like I don’t appreciate his trying to engage. Truth is, I like the kid, have since I first saw him standing nervously in front of my door, obviously trying to work up the courage to knock.

  With nothing left to stare at but an empty plate, I survey my surroundings for the first time. It is a building pretty much like the dorm, albeit without the hallway of doors with those stylish-yet-functional numbers scrawled on them. Folding tables and their accompanying chairs take up one side of the room, set up in a pattern that looks more restaurant than makeshift mess. Red plastic tablecloths that are worn but still serviceable cover every surface, lending an almost festive touch to the room. A couple of eight-foot long, slightly sturdier folding tables serve as a buffet on one of the side walls.

  A lot of floor space is left unused in the middle and other side of the room, which makes no sense to me. The far side of the building is not completely barren, however. What is clearly a stage takes up a good chunk of the emptiness.

  “So, what do you think?”

  Something in Dunk’s voice cuts through my mental wandering.

  “Um, about what?” I ask absently.

  “Was I right, or was I right?” he says. Seeing my confusion, he adds, “About the food?”

  “Oh yeah. The food. Best meal I’ve had in a while.”

  Dunk’s smile has enough wattage to light up the room for a week.

  “Now what?”

  Dunk’s smile brightens further, to the point I am wishing for sunglasses. “Now we party.”

  Right on cue, the room plunges into darkness, only to be relit a few seconds later. The surprise, however, is that instead of the low-slung, manufacturing-complex fluorescent lights that had been our source of illumination, the room is now aglow in reds and blues and oranges and greens. Multicolored string lights, which I had not previously noticed strung from rafter to rafter, light up the room like Christmas Eve. A few people fill in the dark spots with strategically placed candles, which cast dancing shadows along the walls.

  The warmth of memory spreads through me, the kind that comes from a special song or a mental picture long forgotten by your head but still remembered in your heart. Flashes of childhood race along, of Christmas mornings under the tree and cocoa after an afternoon of sledding.

  I haven’t thought of such things in a long time. I revel in it even as it suffocates me.

  The urge to run is overwhelming, and it is all I can do to not jump to my feet and break for the door, to grab my bag and Mugsy and leave this place far, far behind. I have rarely, if ever, felt such panic in the absence of physical violence. That in itself only unnerves me further.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Dunk sitting there, watching me. He holds only concern in his gaze, and surprisingly, it calms me.

  “You okay?” he asks quietly after a moment, as if he doesn’t want to draw anyone’s attention to my current state of distress. For that, I am grateful.

  “Yeah. It’s just, um…” I have no idea what to say.

  “No worries,” Dunk says, shaking his head. “No worries at all.”

  The first strains of an upbeat 1940s-style dance number float through the air, streaming out of the rather large boom box up near the stage. Immediately, all the kids, who up until now had been sitting in their chairs with swinging legs and fidgeting hands, come running out into the middle of the room, throwing themselves about in time to the music. They are soon followed by the adults, some of whom do fairly good impressions of swing dancers. The rest of the farm’s residents gather into smaller clusters on the outskirts of the makeshift dance floor, talking and laughing and watching the dancers do their thing.

  I do a quick head count to find that nearly every single person who lives at the farm is in the mess hall. The plague’s wrath toward the women of the world is apparent in that moment, as I note only nine females, not including myself, a far cry from the more than thirty males in the room.

  Beside me, Dunk rocks on his heels, seemingly caught between wanting to go out and join the others and not wanting to abandon me. Dunk is the honorable kind, it seems. He notices me watching him, and he looks up at me hopefully.

  “You wanna dance?” he asks, pitiful as a puppy.

  “No, thanks.” He is crestfallen. I throw him a bone. “I’m not really much of a dancer.”

  “Me neither,” he covers. “There’s only one girl here who doesn’t get mad when I step on her toes. But I haven’t seen—Kate!”

  In the split second it takes for Dunk’s mild misery to turn to jubilation, my head snaps around to find the one person I have been dreading and hoping
I’d see. She is near the door, chatting with a man and woman I haven’t yet met, smiling and laughing. She apparently hears Dunk’s somewhat high-pitched squeal of her name, because she turns toward us. Her smile brightens as it falls upon Dunk, and she heads in our direction.

  “Hey there, Duncan,” she says, wrapping her arms around the boy’s shoulders in a warm hug. “I haven’t seen you all day.”

  “Yeah, been busy with the wall,” Dunk responds.

  “No wonder I haven’t seen you. That’s definitely a man-sized day of work.”

  “Yeah,” he says, standing up just a little taller, smiling broadly. It is clear how much Kate’s opinion means to Dunk, and how fond she is of the boy. They could be brother and sister for the affection they share.

  “Taylor,” she says with a nod in my direction. Her voice is smooth and rich, and I swear it is slightly deeper than it had been a few seconds earlier.

  “Hello, Kate.”

  I want to apologize for my earlier behavior, but I don’t know how. I lost the fine art of the apology long ago.

  “Is my favorite dance partner ready to hit the floor with me?” Kate asks Dunk, turning her attention back to him.

  “Absolutely,” he says. He bows and extends his hand out to her. “If Taylor doesn’t mind?”

  Kate and Dunk both turn back to me, awaiting my response. While his face is earnest and unassuming, Kate’s eyebrow lifts in that way of hers, challenging me, though to what I’m not quite sure. My brain can’t handle the possibility.

  “Yeah, sure. I’ll be fine over here. You guys have fun.”

  Once again, Dunk’s face lights up. Kate smiles as well, although I think I sense the faintest glimmer of disappointment. She covers quickly, taking Dunk’s hand and leading him out onto the dance floor.

  I watch Dunk swing Kate around merrily to the music, watch Kate drop her head back and let out a throaty laugh, watch the two of them enjoy the night and each other’s company. I can’t tear my eyes away from them, but especially not from her. There is something so innocent in the way she moves, so unbound by the gravity of the world’s destruction, I find myself longing for such weightlessness.