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“That air mattress cost me $80!”
“Will you hush? Can you not see that our fair maiden requires silence, mostly from you?”
Bamert was there, too. Just two boys standing over the half-conscious body of a teenage girl and bickering, as if that were a perfectly normal thing to do.
“Where am I?” Anna whispered.
“My room,” said Burton. “Keep it down, though. Everyone is looking for you.”
“But how do they not know I’m here? How is he here?” she asked, limply gesturing to Bamert.
“Oh, Anna Huff.” Bamert was trying to whisper but again, even at a low register, his voice could set off seismographs. “No one knows anything. You gave us the secret sauce.”
“What do you mean?”
“The recipe. It’s everything, Anna.”
“The notes! But where are they now?”
“Asmi found a very safe place for them where no one will look, I assure you. Even if they do, Burton copied them to his hard drive. They’re ours. I feel like I’ve grown a comet’s tail.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Understand this,” Bamert told her. “You’re a VIP now. The level under the barracudas. Network Z is garbage. This is everything. I patched that phone of yours. You can port anywhere with that phone and they’ll never know. We could go to Area 41 and watch an alien autopsy now OOOOOH.”
“But how did you figure this out?”
“I told you I was a physicist. I physicisted it.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Anna told him. “I’m dead if I’m spotted.”
“True, true. Everyone is everywhere now. That’s very bad. But you do have a bit of an advantage, given that you’re dead already.”
“What?”
Bamert played her a video clip on the lowest possible volume setting. It was a press conference. The chyron on the bottom of the screen read JASON KIRSCH ALIVE AFTER STABBING; SUSPECT DEAD AFTER VIOLENT STRUGGLE WITH PINE AGENTS. On the right hand corner of the screen was Anna’s dreaded school photo. Standing behind a UCLA hospital lectern were two PINE agents, a neurosurgeon, and Lara and Emilia Kirsch. Lara was still in her prom dress, her skin bleach white and her eyes hollow.
Emilia was the only one talking. “I am extremely grateful to the staff here at UCLA Medical, along with first responders from PINE who acted quickly to protect both my son and my daughter from further harm. Unfortunately, we lost a young PINE agent at the hands of this demented young lady.”
“What the fuck?” asked Anna. “I didn’t kill anyone.”
“So I’m grateful to that brave young troop for the sacrifice he made not just for my family, but for the world as well. I’m also grateful to him and to our other courageous PINE agents for getting Jason the care he needed so quickly,” she said. “It’s yet another demonstration of the miracle of this porting world.”
“Is she cutting a promo right now?” Burton asked. Anna shushed him.
“This girl, this Anna Huff, was obviously extremely disturbed. Tonight we pray for her soul and for her loved ones,” Kirsch said. “This has been an extremely difficult night for my family as well, and so I ask that you all respect our privacy at this time.”
The correspondents who had ported in were not inclined to grant Emilia Kirsch that favor. They shouted every possible question at the two Kirsches as Emilia walked away from the lectern and Lara Kirsch stood there, still in shock. Anna saw the grief in her eyes and felt an extremely strange mix of sorrow and joy. She’s mourning. She’s mourning you. Maybe she really does love you. Her heart became a delicate bubble inside her, rising and growing at a pace that the rest of her wilted body—deflated organs, cracked bones, tangled nerves and blood vessels—couldn’t accommodate. She wanted Lara to know she was alive. God, if she could only tell her somehow. If she could just clear the world away and get to Lara and look in her eyes, then everything would make sense and love could do the rest. There was only one place Anna wanted to go and yet, even in this miracle world, she couldn’t go there. Maybe not ever.
This isn’t fair.
“LARA!” someone from the media throng cried. “Why were you kissing Miss Huff?!”
Emilia headed back to the lectern. “You don’t have to answer that, Lara. Come along now.”
Lara didn’t move. Emilia grabbed her by the bare arm, but Lara shook her off. The reporter screamed the question again and the rest of the throng died down, sensing that Lara was poised to answer. She leaned into the microphone as Emilia stared death rays in her direction.
“She was just a friend,” Lara said.
The throng rose up again as Emilia pulled Lara away from the lectern and off the stage. A couple of seconds later, two loud portclaps came from off camera and the clip ended. Bamert’s phone went dark and Anna stared up at the ceiling, wanting only stillness.
“God almighty, she friend-zoned you posthumously,” Bamert said. “The cruelest kindness.”
“She’s lying,” Anna said. “She can’t let Emilia know how she really feels.”
“You need to be careful with this,” Burton warned her. “Don’t get blinded.”
“You don’t understand, Burton.”
“That’s what everyone says when they’re in love.”
“I could explain why you’re wrong this time around, but it would be easier to just kick your ass instead.”
“Okay, okay! Jeez!”
Bamert sat at Anna’s bedside, the way her mom used to whenever she was sick as a child. Sandy would make Anna toast, pop open a lukewarm ginger ale, and deliver it all to her on a little tray. Then Sandy would sit and stroke Anna’s hair and let her know, even in her misery, that she was still loved.
Now Anna looked up at Bamert and started to cry once more. “I love Lara,” she told him. “I love her so much it hurts, Bamert.”
“I know,” Bamert said. “It’s a wild, unkind thing. That first love is always the most epic. It takes you and has its way with you, I know.”
“You don’t know. No one knows what this is like.” She believed this in her soul. No one else knew what it was like to carry this searching, frantic ache. Love can’t be like this for other people, can it? It’s good for them, right? That ache continually impressed its meaningfulness upon her: an insidious way of keeping Anna in its thrall. The fact that she was on a mission to save Lara and the world at large made that ache even more definitive. Who else but Anna Huff could understand this?
“You’re wrong,” Bamert told her. “You see, this is not the only school I’ve been expelled from.”
“What?”
He pressed down on the mattress to steady himself. “Do you remember that first day we met? When you asked me if I was always like this?”
“Yes.”
“I wasn’t.” He looked down at the ground, the ghost of a much younger boy shining through his garish façade.
“She was a dash of pepper, Jessica. She was sweet and kind and smelled heavenly all the time. And she liked me. That is a hell of a feeling, Anna Huff. To know that a girl could like a million different people out there, but that she likes you. It’s like finding out you’re made of solid gold. We were just ninth graders, and I don’t think anyone else thought our love was real but us. I think that’s what made it so special, yes I do.”
“What happened?” Anna asked.
“It was a Sunday in June, right before school was gonna let out. You weren’t supposed to port from Deerbrook but they didn’t have a wall, just some stupid honor code they expected you to obey.”
“But you didn’t obey it.”
Bamert looked at Anna with a grim smile. He didn’t obey the honor code. He got his ass kicked every day at that fucking school. So yeah, Bamert had earned the right to port out when he wanted to. He and Jessica ported to Branford, Connecticut, overlooking Long Island Sound.
“And we frolicked. Frolicked for hours. People don’t frolic anymore, and they should. It was just the loveliest day you could ever hope for. We climbed up this tall cliff and we were making sure it was safe to jump when I heard the owner of that cliff come out his back door hootin’ and hollerin’. Well, I’m a Southern boy, so I know what happens when you dare to infringe on another man’s property. I took Jessica’s hand and we jumped and then...” He looked down at his right hand and opened and closed it. “It’s a funny thing. Maybe if I had jumped a little bit farther to the left, or maybe if I had let go sooner she would’ve drifted more to the right. But no, she landed right where she landed.”
“Oh, Bamert.”
“I told you that I didn’t like heights above water. Anyway, that was three schools ago. Edgar sent me here because he figured the Harkness Wall would keep me penned in. He should’ve known better.”
“I’m so sorry, Bamert.”
“Not your fault, Anna Huff. It’s my fault. Everything is my fault. I’m sorry you know this about me. If everyone knew everything about everyone, we wouldn’t wanna be with anyone.”
“That’s not true,” Anna told him. “I’m glad you told me.”
“There I go again, huh? I can’t believe I’ve somehow made even this night about me, although I suppose I can.” He took a swig of bottled water. “I don’t know how people drink this garbage.”
“Did you always know this about him?” Anna asked Burton.
“Why do you think I put up with him?” Burton said. “I’ve known Paul my whole life. My parents are Edgar Bamert’s landscapers.”
“It’s true,” Bamert said. “He knows how much I look up to him, yes he does.”
“So you started drinking because Jessica died,” Anna said.
“No I started drinking because my parents hated me. But Jessica dying didn’t help, no. People heard about it, you know. A lotta kids here at Druskin know. That’s why they treated me like a freak. Frankly I’m surprised you didn’t know about it. Search my name online and it comes right up.”
“I liked you too much to ever Google you.”
“That’s the kindest thing anyone’s ever said to me. But still, ain’t it a bitch: The first person who ever loved me, and I killed her.”
“We love you, Bamert,” Anna said. “I love you.”
“Thank you.” There was no good ol’ boy bravado when he said it. He got off the bed and knelt at Anna’s side, taking her hand in his piquant mitts. “I love you too, dear friend. And you love Lara Kirsch.”
“I do.”
“You believe she loves you.”
“I do.”
“But you don’t really know if she loves you!” Burton protested.
“Burton,” said a weary Anna, “How will anyone love me if I always assume no one does?”
“You believe in this love,” Bamert told her. “You would beg for it.”
“I would.”
“You try to hate that love all you like because it owns you. But deep down, you never want it to stop. You don’t want love to listen.”
“I don’t.”
“You believe only the corniest things now—like that boy who climbed the Harkness Wall did—because love has taken root inside you.”
“I do and it has.”
“And you believe in Lara and she believes in you. True love means you believe in one another.”
“Yes.”
“True love represents the bones of the soul. You really are a lion, Anna Huff. A true and bold lion. If I do one good thing with this pointless goddamn life of mine, it’ll be to wrangle that love for you so that it never gets away. People who fall in love can forget how nice it is to have friends, you know. I’ll help. Burton will, too.”
“I never agreed to that,” Burton said.
Bamert began to furiously dig into his pockets. “Oh my stars, let me just see if I have any fucks left to give.” He proudly held up two empty hands. “Why, dear boy, it appears that I have no fucks left to give a’tall!”
“Bamert,” said Burton, “We’ve had this chat already. I am not a garden tool you can grab out of the shed. I have my own life to consider.”
“And what higher purpose could that life serve than love?” asked Bamert. “What’s more ethical than that?! You can help make true love real! You’ve already helped in ways that some might categorize as Un-Druskinlike Conduct!” He walked over to Burton, knelt down, and took his hand. “Please, Jamie. This isn’t me being selfish. This is for fair Anna Huff. She’d do the same for you, because her ethics are good and true. You can grow up the way they tell you to grow up, or you can use the strange and deeply irritating talents the good Lord bestowed upon you to spread His greatest gift of all. You’re in.”
Burton sighed. “Okay but—”
“Shut up. I said you’re in,” Bamert said. He walked back to Anna and stood over her, a massive and welcome sentinel.
“We’ll get you back to Lara,” he told her. “But first, you have to do something.”
“What’s that?” Anna asked.
“Play dead.”