Part 30 (1/2)

The cliffside plantation estate has a rose garden filled with well-pruned hedges and exotic, aromatic flowers.

Risa, having been raised in the concrete confines of an inner-city state home, was never much of a garden girl, but once she was allowed access, she began coming out daily, if only to pretend that she isn't a prisoner. The sensation of walking again is still new enough to make every step in the garden feel like a gift.

Today, however, Roberta is there, preparing some sort of miniature production. There is a small camera crew, and smack in the middle of the garden sits her old wheelchair. The sight of it brings back a flood of too many emotions to sort through right now.

”Would you mind telling me what this is all about?” Risa asks, not sure she really wants to know.

”You've been on your feet for almost a week now,” Roberta tells her. ”It's time to deliver on the first of the services you've agreed to perform.”

”Thank you for wording it just the right way to make me feel like I'm prost.i.tuting myself.”

For a moment Roberta is fl.u.s.tered, but she's quick to recover her poise. ”I meant it no such way, but you do have a knack of taking things and twisting them.” Then she hands Risa a sheet of paper. ”Here are your lines. You'll be recording a public service announcement.”

Risa has to laugh at that. ”You're putting me on TV?”

”And in print ads, and on the net. It's the first of many plans we have for you.”

”Really, and what else do you have planned?”

Roberta smiles at her. ”You'll know when it's your time to know.”

Risa reads over the single paragraph, and the words go straight to the pit of her stomach.

”If you're unable to memorize them, we have cue cards prepared,” Roberta says.

Risa has to read the paragraph twice just to convince herself she's actually seeing what she's seeing. ”No! I won't say this, you can't make me say this!” She crumples the page and throws it down.

Roberta calmly opens her folder and hands her another one. ”You should know by now that there's always another copy.”

Risa won't take it. ”How dare you make me say this?”

”Your histrionics are uncalled-for. There's absolutely nothing in there that isn't true.”

”It doesn't matter. It's not the words, it's what's implied!”

Roberta shrugs. ”Truth is truth. Implications are subjective. People will hear your words and draw their own conclusions.”

”Don't try to doublethink me, Roberta. I'm not as stupid or naive as you'd like to think.”

Then the expression on Roberta's face changes; she becomes coolly direct. No more posturing. ”This is what is required of you, so this is what you will do. Or perhaps you've forgotten our arrangement. . . .” It's a threat as thinly veiled as the sheerest silk. Then out of nowhere they hear- ”What arrangement?”

They both turn to see Cam coming out into the garden. Roberta throws Risa a warning glance, and Risa looks down to the crumpled piece of paper at her feet, saying nothing.

”Her spine, of course,” Roberta says. ”In return for very expensive and state-of-the-art spinal replacement surgery, Risa has agreed to become a part of the Proactive Citizenry family. And every member of the family has a role to play.” Then she holds out the paragraph to Risa again. Risa knows she has no choice but to take it. She looks to the video crew, who wait impatiently to do their job, then back to Roberta.

”Do you want me to stand beside the wheelchair?” Risa asks.

”No, you should sit in it,” Roberta tells her, ”then rise halfway through. That will be more effective, don't you think?”

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT.

”I was paralyzed-a victim of the clapper attack at Happy Jack Harvest Camp. I used to hate the very idea of unwinding, then overnight I was the one with a desperate medical need. Without unwinding, I would have been denied a new spine. Without unwinding, I would be confined to this wheelchair for the rest of my life. I was a state ward. I was an AWOL. I was a paraplegic-but now I'm none of those things. My name is Risa Ward, and unwinding changed my life.”

-paid for by the National Whole Health Society Risa has always thought of herself as a survivor. She managed the treacherous waters of Ohio State Home 23 until the day she became a ”budget cut” and was pruned for unwinding. Then she survived as an AWOL, then at harvest camp, and then even survived a devastating explosion that should have killed her. Her strength has always been her keen mind and her ability to adapt.

Well, adapt to this: A life of minor celebrity, all the comforts you could desire, a smart and charming boy infatuated with you . . . and the abandonment of everything you believe, along with the abdication of your conscience.

Risa sits on a plush lawn chair in the backyard of the cliffside estate, looking out at the tropical sunset, pondering these things and trying to infuse perspective and peace back into her mind. There's a powerful surge against her soul, as relentless as the waves cras.h.i.+ng below, reminding her that in time the strongest of mountains is eroded into the sea, and she doesn't know how much longer she can resist it, or even if she should.

There was a news interview this morning. She tried to answer questions in a way so that she never actually had to lie. It's true that her support of unwinding is ”a matter of necessity,” but no one but she and Roberta know what has made it so necessary. No matter how hard she tries, though, things come out of her mouth that she can't believe she's said. Unwinding is the least of all evils. Is there actually a part of her that believes that? The constant manipulation has left her internal compa.s.s spinning so wildly, she's afraid she'll never find true north again.

Exhausted, she dozes, and it seems only seconds later she's awakened by someone gently shaking her shoulder. It's night now-just the slightest trace of blue on the horizon holds the memory of dusk.

”Sawing wood,” Cam says. ”I didn't know you snored.”

”I don't,” she says groggily. ”And I'm sticking to my story.”

Cam has a blanket with him. It's only as he wraps it around her that she realizes how chilled she has gotten while she slept. Even in this tropical environment, the air can get cool at night.

”I wish you wouldn't spend so much time alone,” he says. ”You don't have to, you know.”

”When you've spent most of your life in a state home, solitude feels like a luxury.”

He kneels beside her. ”We have our first interview together next week-they're flying us to the mainland-has Roberta told you?”

Risa sighs. ”I know all about it.”

”We're supposed to be a couple. . . .”

”So I'll smile and do my job for the camera. You don't have to worry.”

”I was hoping you wouldn't see it as a job.”

Rather than looking at him, she looks up to see a sky full of stars-even fuller than the sky over the Graveyard, but there, she rarely had the time or the inclination to look heavenward.

”I know all their names,” Cam offers. ”The stars, that is.”

”Don't be ridiculous; there are billions of stars, you can't know them all.”

”Hyperbole,” he says. ”I guess I'm exaggerating-but I do know all the ones that matter.” Then he begins pointing them out, his voice taking on just the slightest Boston accent as he accesses the living star chart in his head. ”That's Alpha Centauri, which means 'foot of the centaur.' It's one of the closest stars to us. That bright one to the right? That's Sirius-the brightest star in the sky. . . .”

His voice begins to feel hypnotic to her, and it brings her a hint of the peace she's been craving. Am I making this more difficult than it has to be? Risa wonders. Should I find a way to adapt?

”That dim one is Spica, which is actually a hundred times brighter than Sirius, but it's much farther away. . . .”

Risa has to remind herself that her choice to get with Proactive Citizenry's program was not out of selfishness-so shouldn't her conscience be appeased? And if not-if her conscience is the only thing dragging her to dark depths, shouldn't she be able to cut it loose in order to survive?