FIFTEEN

Lea had expected the Observers to show up at her apartment after she kicked Todd out, but so far, they hadn’t. Still, she had been on edge all week.

So when George clapped his meaty paw on her shoulder in greeting at WeCovery, she shrank away in visible irritation. His hand was left hanging midair, a look of awkward confusion clouding his features.

“Hi,” Lea said with a bright smile. “Hi.” She gave a stiff wave to the rest of the group.

They nodded and mumbled greetings. No one met her eye except for the bread-faced woman, the one with the husband. Greg. Susan—that was her name. The bandage on her little finger was gone now, and her toothy smile seemed to suggest she was in high spirits.

George took his place in the circle. Lea noticed for the first time that he had a different chair—while theirs were white folding chairs, his was made of polished pine. “So.” He straightened up, clapped his hands together. “Gratitude session.”

Silence. Only Susan was nodding furiously, her lips parted as if the words were on the tip of her tongue.

“You guys know the drill,” George went on, scanning their faces. He caught Lea’s eye. “Don’t worry, Lea, it’s exactly what it sounds like. We talk about something we’re grateful for this week, to remind ourselves why we are here. Simple, really. But the hardest things to do are the simple ones.”

Susan had leaned forward so much that she was practically falling off her seat. Without waiting for George to call on her, she started going on in a high, breathless voice: “I am grateful for so many things, so many, really! But of course the main thing, if I had to pick just one thing of course, that would be Greg. Not that I’m saying he’s a thing, of course.” She let out a high-pitched giggle that made Ambrose wince.

“Uh-huh. Greg, yes, great.” Was she imagining it or was there a hint of impatience in George’s voice? Lea shot him a quick glance. But no—he looked as earnest and well-meaning as ever.

“He’s just an angel, really. I guess you all know that already, since you all know about my Fateful Day. How he got down on his hands and knees to clean it all up. Took him hours. But I don’t want to bore you with the details again. You’ve all heard this so many times. There are other things, though, like how he always remembers to charge my tablet when I’m asleep, so he can send me sweet text messages through the day. Or how he installed that location tracker on my tab, just in case it got stolen. You never know, these days. He jokes it’s in case I get kidnapped. Ha, ha. Who’d ever kidnap a big old lump like me? Ha. But that’s Greg. Always kidding around…”

Susan went on for another five minutes, her nostrils flaring, barely pausing for a breath. Her face grew more and more animated as she spoke, until it was contorted into an ecstatic, fevered mask. A slow revulsion began to build in Lea’s stomach. But she couldn’t look away. Lea tried not to think about what she and Susan shared.

Then all of a sudden, Susan was done. Her mouth was still open, but she had run out of words. A strange look crossed her face as she pressed her lips together slowly. A long breath escaped her, like the air from a balloon.

After a moment of heavy silence, George seemed to come to, saying briskly: “Great, perfect, thank you, Susan. Shall we keep going? Lots to do today, lots to do.”

A small, dark man with a trim mustache went next. His name was Archie; he was grateful for sunrises, the way they always surprised you, bleeding out into the sky in that wild, uncontrolled way.

“Very good, Archie. Natural beauty, that’s a big one. But please remember, for next time, the ‘B’ word.” George inclined his eyebrows toward Archie.

They kept going. Family was a common theme (“Heartening, truly heartening, in this day and age,” George said, beaming), beauty again, and then some other epithets about hope, choice, the future. When it came around to Lea’s turn, she bit down on her lower lip and mumbled something about her fiancé and their future offspring. She tried not to look as George typed something into his tablet.

“Pair work?” George announced, gleefully pushing up his glasses, leaving a fat fingerprint on the left lens. He didn’t seem to notice. “All right, guys. I’ve heard you. We’ve all heard you. Now, talk to each other. Ready, set, go.”

The two on either side of Lea, Ambrose and another man who always spoke with a stuffed nose, turned away from her. She sat awkwardly, hands clasped in her lap. George was preoccupied with Susan, who was now whispering furiously at him, stabbing one finger into the empty air.

No one was looking at Lea. They all seemed absorbed in the activity. She shifted, trying to ignore the feeling of being left out. She wanted to be left out, she reminded herself. The WeCovery Group was hardly the kind of club she was dying to be a part of.

The “D” word. Lea let out a small snort.

“Lea. Glad to see you smiling again. It must be all those grateful feelings,” George boomed at her. Susan was still whispering behind him, apparently deaf to all else. He ignored her, instead watching Lea, a satisfied, catlike grin on his face. His eyes were flinty behind the glasses.

She looked away from him, the laugh freezing on her face. Her gaze flitted from the mustard carpet to the chipped wooden plaques hanging stubbornly on the walls to that small, clouded window on the far side of the room. The room felt smaller all of a sudden, despite all that empty space.

“Just reflecting, George,” Lea said, flashing him a measured smile. “Friends, mainly, companionship like what we have. That’s what I’m grateful for. The WeCovery Group.”

“Of course. And you have lots of friends watching out for you, don’t you?”

There was no mistaking the note of warning in his voice. Did he know about Todd?

Suddenly her nerves seemed to light up; her vision narrowed, a white-hot sensation, her fist clenched in her lap. An old, familiar anger. She paused, forced herself to exhale silently, counting to ten. It was that, rather than anything George could possibly say, that made Lea afraid. She exhaled silently, counting to ten.

Susan was still muttering pitifully. Lea could just about make out something about a puppy: poor puppy was sick, Greg was upset about the puppy, so it was important that she, Susan, was there for them all. The glue that held them together.

“Of course,” Lea said, still bright. “Friends.” She looked around. Anja, too, was sitting silently on the other side of the circle, the two beside her having turned away, their hunched forms symmetrical as wings.

Lea dragged her chair across the musty carpet toward Anja. She thought of all the lung-clogging particles and microorganisms being roused from the ground. Salmonella, Campylobacter, Listeria, Shigella, she recited mentally.

“So, how do we do this? What are you grateful for?” Lea was aware of George’s eyes on them, watching and assessing. She strained for the right words, hoping Anja would play along. But her eyes gave nothing away. The way she breathed was unsettling—long pauses between breaths, abrupt, slow intakes of air as if she had suddenly remembered the need.

“Yes,” Anja said. “Gratitude.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Lea cut in. “As in, you never know when it’s going to hit you. Since there are always so many things to be grateful for.”

Anja narrowed her eyes. She seemed to shake herself, and her gaze settled on Lea as if she were noticing her there for the first time.

“Music, I guess,” Anja said. She stopped.

Lea nodded, chin pressed against the heel of her hand. She had no idea what Anja was talking about, but she was acutely aware of George’s eyes on them. The fluorescent lights seemed to shine straight through the skin pulled taut over Anja’s cheekbones.

“That’s what I’m grateful for. Music.”

“What instruments do you play?” Lea asked.

“I play the violin,” Anja said. She had a way of looking at things as if they gave off a glaring light; that was how she looked at Lea now.

“And?” Lea asked.

“Don’t you know? Oh, of course you don’t,” George said.

Anja seemed to solidify. As if the cells that made up her body suddenly drew together, eliminating the empty, misty spaces between them.

“Our Anja here is famous. A celebrity.”

“I am not,” Anja said. Her voice was calm, but the air around her seemed to grow heavy.

“Her mother, too,” George said. “Even more famous. Used to sing at Carnegie Hall.”

He pronounced “Carnegie” as if it were a French word, his thick wet lips curling grotesquely around the last syllable. Anja was silent.

“I don’t know why you’re so shy about it. Not the healthiest profession, of course. Probably why you’re here now. We get a lot of ‘artistic’ types. Used to have a painter; now, he was a lost cause, ended up in a detention center, takes all his nutrition intravenously. At least he’s alive.”

George pressed the tips of his fingers together thoughtfully. Then he turned back to Susan, who had spent the last minute tapping his elbow.

Anja didn’t move. On impulse, Lea reached out and placed her hand over Anja’s. She rarely touched strangers, but there was something about the look on Anja’s face that made her do it. Despite their icy paleness, Anja’s hands were warm, almost hot, trembling invisibly.

“She was actually famous,” Anja said, so softly that Lea wasn’t sure she’d heard.

“Does she still perform?” Lea asked. A thousand other questions raced through her mind—what kind of singer, were there even live performances anymore, why would anyone knowingly choose to be a musician, given the stats?

“No. She doesn’t.”

Lea shot a sideways glance at George. He sat with his head close to Susan’s, nodding seriously every now and then. The solid trunk of his thigh was pressed up against her knee.

“What is it with him?” Lea asked in a low voice. Lea wasn’t sure exactly what she meant, but Anja cocked her head as if she understood. She shrugged.

“Some people have callings, I suppose,” she answered. “I don’t think he means harm.”

Lea looked around again. Everyone else was still deep in conversation.

“It got worse. After the last session. The Observers—they showed up at my apartment, in my living room. Can you believe it?”

Anja’s expression didn’t change. There was a calm, blank quality about her features, a kind of emptiness that Lea felt compelled to fill. Maybe that was why she was still talking.

“And then I found out my fiancé was reporting on me. I think it was him, George,” Lea went on, glancing at George. “Who else would it be? And the way he talked to you. He’s out of line. He has too much power.”

Anja turned to look at George. She looked at him as if appraising a piece of furniture. George dispensed words to Susan with a grave air, making deliberate hand gestures that looked like he was screwing in a lightbulb.

Suddenly Lea saw him through Anja’s eyes: a bespectacled, crumbling man. When he spoke, his lips were thick and fleshy. A small rust-colored stain marked the collar of his carefully ironed shirt.

“George is just like us. He gets visits from them, too. It’s not George. It’s everyone.”

It made no sense. Lea realized her hand was still pressed over Anja’s, the pale translucence of Anja’s fingers stark against Lea’s tan skin. She drew away.

“So what’s the point of this? All the talking, the meetings, this?” Lea waved one hand at the plaques on the wall, their gold surfaces glaring in the harsh light.

Anja shrugged again. The gray woolen shawl she wore slipped down one thin shoulder. “What about you?” she asked.

“Me?”

“What are you, you know, grateful for?”

“Why are we even talking about this? Does any of it matter?” Lea crossed her arms, wrapping her hands around her torso. Through the fabric of her blouse, she felt out her ribs with her fingers and began counting them in her head.

Anja let out a long, hissing sigh.

“I paint,” Lea said in a low voice. She paused.

“Is that what you’re grateful for, then?” Anja looked up.

“No! I mean, they came to my house. Where I keep my paintings. And they saw my music collection.”

No reaction from Anja. If she was shocked, she didn’t show it. Though, if she herself was a musician, Lea thought, this would hardly shock her.

“I’ll never get off the List if they find out,” Lea went on, almost to herself now.

Anja looked up. “What List?”

“The Observation List?”

Anja’s lips parted to release a high, hacking noise, like a cat trying to get rid of a fur ball caught in its throat. It was only when she glanced at Lea, her eyes crinkled and wiry, that Lea realized she was in fact laughing.

“Do you like music, then?” Anja asked at last.

“Music?”

“You said you had a collection.”

Lea scrutinized Anja’s face, but it was as blank as before, without the slightest trace of laughter.

“What kind? Pop? Rock? Jazz? Funk? R&B? Classical?” Anja persisted.

“Classical,” Lea said, just above a whisper. She looked around—everyone was still wrapped up in their rapturous confessional states. No one seemed to have heard. “Bach’s Passions, you know,” Lea mumbled.

Anja nodded approvingly. She brought one fingernail to her front teeth and bit down. She seemed to be thinking.

“But, back to gratitude,” Lea said. “My boss too, he’s a great guy. Never gives us too hard a time, not even when—”

“Can I come listen to it?”

Lea stopped. “What?”

“Your collection. You said you had the Passions. Can I come listen to them? At your place?”

Lea shook her head. Was Anja crazy?

“Please,” Anja said. “I haven’t heard music, proper music, in such a long time.”

Lea was about to shake her head again when she remembered what Anja had said. It’s not George. It’s everyone. The way she had laughed when Lea talked about getting off the Observation List. Perhaps Lea could talk to her. Perhaps Anja knew something.