Chapter 53 Amanda

CHAPTER 53 AMANDA

2011

Bolton Landing

Annie was always setting up these games with the universe. Like this one time we were waiting for an elevator during a school trip to the Egg, this strange theater in Albany that really did look like the bottom half of a Cadbury Creme Egg. The teacher called the elevator, and Annie leaned into me and said, “If the elevator comes within ten seconds, then we’re going to be safe.” My eyes darted toward her. “Um, no thank you to that little game,” I whispered.

She didn’t say anything, but when the elevator took a long time, long enough that the teacher pressed the button again, she finally said under her breath, “Yeah, that was crazy.”

Another time this happened was when she was pulling open the door at the local pizza place, and she said, “The guy behind the register, if his first word is ‘hi’ we get cheese; but if his first word is anything else, we get pepperoni, okay?” I went along with this one because I had no preference. But when we sat down with our slices—pepperoni; the guy had said How can I help you? —I took a deep sip of my fountain soda, then said, “All right, can I ask you a question?”

She was midbite, so she just nodded.

“I don’t understand these games you play,” I said, gesturing toward the counter.

She brought her elbows to the table and propped her chin on closed fists, exhaled long and slow. “It’s like these things just pop into my brain,” she said. “And I can’t get them out. I try to spare you—most of the time.”

“It’s just weird,” I said.

“Weird how?” she asked, taking another bite and chewing slowly, watching me. My thoughts were only half-baked, so it took a little while, and Annie kept eating as she waited. My pizza went untouched.

“Okay,” I said, finally landing on an explanation. “I think it’s just… odd, seeing you surrender to the universe. It’s so unlike you in every way.”

She didn’t seem upset—she seemed to really be considering this. “Huh,” she said, starting in on her crust. “It’s funny you say that because to me it feels like a relief—like my brain’s way of saving me from obsessing endlessly about every single decision.”

Then she stuffed the rest of the crust in her mouth, could barely get her jaw to move. She glanced at my soda, mumbled, “You gonna share?”

These strange games with the universe that Annie played must have made more of an impression than I realized, because once she was gone, I found myself playing them, too. A few years after I got sober, I started working the front desk at my dad’s garage. Did he really need my help, probably not, but he wanted me to find purpose, and he thought showing up somewhere three times a week was a start.

Mostly I read books. Or stared at the clock above the door. Then one afternoon, out of nowhere, a little voice inside my head introduced an idea: if the next person who walks through the door smiles, your life is going to get better. And I swear, not a second later, Mr. Riley walked in. He didn’t notice me at first, had his head down looking for something in his wallet, but when he got to the counter he looked up. He shook his head, smiled softly. “Amanda, I can’t even tell you how good it is to see you.” He walked around the counter, leaned down, and gave me a long, warm hug. And as he did, I was thinking how quickly the universe had delivered: my life was already better.

“I was just thinking of you this morning,” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Seriously—I was. We’re doing Twelfth Night again. Today was the first day of rehearsals. So, of course, it made me think of—” He hesitated slightly, almost imperceptibly, before quickly finishing the sentence, “you.” Then there was this pause during which we were both thinking, but absolutely not talking, about Annie.

A second later he slapped his wallet against his open palm and said, “You know what—why don’t you come by, help us out? Nobody knows this play like you do. I’d love your help.”

I was honestly stunned by how quickly this moment had come upon me. Maybe Annie had been onto something with this universe stuff. I stuttered for a second, which was unlike me. Then I stopped, took a quick, deep breath and looked at Mr. Riley like, Allow me to gather myself . A beat later:

“Yes. I would love that.”

He nodded once, sealing the agreement, then handed me his credit card. I’d almost forgotten that he’d come in for his car. When he left a few minutes later, I couldn’t understand why my joy was presenting as burning-hot tears. Then I covered my eyes and sobbed into my hands, pausing only to fling a stapler at the wall.

I think my anger was about realizing that even now, even after everything, Annie was still involved in all the good moments of my life. I

CATE KAY

The Very Last

The city was asleep when Persephone Park, the only daughter of Samantha Park, left it for good. Persephone, still just a young woman, had grown up in the public eye, as she was the only child of one of the world’s most revered figures. She was American royalty.

Born three years after the blast, Persephone was called a miracle baby, but growing up she felt like an afterthought. She harbored no ill will toward her mom, only profound disappointment, and sadness. She’d been raised by a dying woman whose energy and attention were consumed with the business of staying alive.

And Samantha Park had succeeded, had lived for nearly ten years after that legendary broadcast, dying when Persephone was seven years old. The funeral was broadcast to billions.

Persephone commanded the devotion of the world and yet she felt empty. And emptiness, she had learned, created hunger—hunger for what, she didn’t know.

Possessing things wasn’t what she wanted; she wanted the feeling that came with striving and making and building something never seen before. And to do that, she believed she had to start at zero.

And so, Persephone had decided to leave this version of her life in pursuit of another. She would go to The Core. To the deserted island formerly called Manhattan where, according to media reports, a community had been established completely off-line and outside government control.

The blast that destroyed Manhattan had taken seventeen years to clean up. At first, scientists hoped the city could be rebuilt, but the cost, the rising water levels, the areas with still dangerously high radiation levels—they determined it shouldn’t be done. A decision was made to give Manhattan back to nature.

But in the final days of cleanup, a small band of native New Yorkers vowed to return, to build something new. An unspoken agreement existed between these re-settlers and the last workers to leave the island. And when the government officially left the island for the final time, a dozen containers filled with scrap metal and found items were left behind.

It was from these artifacts that The Core was built—from the scraps of the city that had once been the most famous in the world. The Core was a society built off the grid, with its own laws and rules and customs, and Persephone was joining them because she needed to prove herself—if only to herself.

She left on a summer night, the week after college graduation. Her best friend, Kelly, was asleep in the guest room of her penthouse apartment, and Persephone peeked in on the way out—she hated the pain she would cause her, but she had to go.

It was just after midnight, the best time to avoid the patrols guarding the river. Nobody was allowed to cross, as if it were a border, which struck Persephone as counterproductive—people always want to go where they’re told they can’t.

Persephone was carrying two items: a backpack on her right shoulder, a red sleeping bag on her left. She walked past two NO ENTRY barricades and a warning about nuclear fallout, then she slipped through a tear in one part of the fence. She was amazed with her herself, with how boldly she was taking action, while also, if she dug deeper, she worried that she’d come to regret this night, this radical decision.

But mostly, she felt unstoppable, which she noticed was a double-edged sword. She felt both powerful and out of control.

Persephone could feel the river before she could see it, the way the sky above seemed more open, the breeze unencumbered. She spotted the rowboat that had been promised by her contact. It had been dragged onto the riverbed just where they said it would be.

Persephone looked up and down the bank. Nothing but overgrowth. Nothing amiss. She had a small window to row herself across before the patrol circled back. She moved quickly, dropping her backpack and sleeping bag on the central wooden slat, then wading into the water with the wooden boat.

She couldn’t believe she was doing it. She looked up into the dark night sky—this was a moment she’d remember the rest of her life—then she began rowing across the Hudson River toward the only place she believed she could truly discover who she was.

Weeks later, Persephone was asleep on her red sleeping bag in the corner of the one-room structure she had built from scavenged wood and sheet metal. In The Core she had become consumed by the work of building a new life. Walls, a roof, food, water. Starting from scratch was taxing—emotionally and physically.

On this morning, Persephone was awoken by a wet tongue on her exposed hand. The sensation startled her at first, and she recoiled, but then she remembered and placed her hand on the smooth head of Puck, the gray-and-white pit bull mix who had made life in The Core a million times better.

Puck had been a surprise; Persephone still didn’t know who she belonged to and was terrified that eventually someone might come claim her. Puck made her feel like they were a duo on an epic adventure—and Persephone liked how cinematic that made her life feel.

She rubbed Puck’s head then pressed herself to standing and walked over to her backpack, pulled out her favorite sweatshirt—light gray with the cartoon characters Tom and Jerry lounging against palm trees, the word California written in cursive above them. The bane of my existence , her grandma had said about the sweatshirt whenever Persephone wore it, which was every day, always—it reminded her of the last time she had felt safe and whole and loved.

“C’mon girl,” Persephone called to Puck as she walked toward the old shower curtain that currently served as her front door. She drew the curtain back and peered outside.

Persephone marveled at the world she now inhabited. She took in the patches of dry land grown high with weeds and young trees and wild vegetation, shallow rivers slicing through. The sea had risen. The water from the rivers, from the ocean, had crept higher and made the southern chunk of the island swamp-like in many areas. The tiny population of The Core—last count was ninety-one—used rowboats to navigate the arteries and passages, and Persephone watched as in the distance a woman rowed a peeling silver boat from her shed.

Persephone took a deep breath, exhaled. She had almost gone back across, then home to Newark, a dozen times. Was always one second away from going back.

But she wouldn’t go home. She couldn’t. She knew what that life felt like. And it wasn’t enough.

I . Note from Cate: And she in mine.