We stream out the same door that we came in, a knot of people wrestling two sturdy carts with shelves and outsized wheels into a dark side street. The street is almost empty; a few people are walking on the other side. They ignore us. Ida and three men pull one of the carts down the street the same way the walkers were going.
Mei, Rebecca, Monday, and I push the other cart uphill, the savory smell of the chicken soup steaming around our faces. Jugs of water and chipped coffee cups fill the rest of the top shelf. An empty plastic bin sits on the bottom.
We lean into the work. The cart is unwieldy and one of the wheels squeaks and tries to pull us all to the right. My pack is heavy, and I think of Monday loaded down with her new books as well. But it’s not as if we’d leave our stuff behind. Monday and I live like turtles.
Tom walks beside us, two old men on either side of him. At the corner, Tom stops to watch by the door where we found him. He looks directly at Monday. “Come back tonight. I’ll wait for you.”
She lets go of the cart with one hand and gives him a brief hug, the first time I’ve seen her hug a man since Justice. Tom looks like he regrets not being able to come with us, but he turns obediently when one of the men takes his hand and pulls. They are all old, but the other two are strong enough to help Tom walk in spite of their wrinkled, sunken faces.
From the outside, Powell’s looks empty and shuttered.
Burnside is busier than the side street and by the time we’ve gone no more than a block toward the bridges there are people sitting on the sidewalk in groups, talking. On one corner about a dozen people sing and a nearby crowd cheers as a man uses two sticks to juggle a third stick with balls of flame on each end.
Mei and Monday ladle soup into cups while Rebecca and I hand them into the crowd. People nod and say thank you, and we keep going until all the cups have been handed out, working just one side of the street. There are so many people that there will not be enough soup, but Mei and Rebecca seem unfazed by this. Rebecca is largely silent but Mei greets almost everyone, many by name.
Once a man hands them three books in trade for soup, and Mei places the books on the bottom of the cart.
Empty cups begin to come back to us, filling the bin on the bottom. It all feels like a familiar ritual, like the carts and the booksellers were expected. It feels good, too. Helping.
We pour water into containers people already have, or back into soup cups when people hold them out to us.
Someone taps me on the back and I turn to find Alex. “Have you seen Bryce or Aisha?” she asks. “Or Tam?”
I’m really happy to see her and I hand her a cup of soup.
She looks startled at the food in her hands, then grins. “Thanks.”
“We left right after the smoke. What happened next?”
“Bryce started leading people up here. I lost him.”
“Is it true Kevin’s in jail?”
She nods, her mouth full. She’s so thin she looks like she needs more than one cup of soup, so I slide an extra to her, making sure no one else can see. But she returns it, and the empty cup. “Gotta go. Thanks.”
I want her to stay so I can ask her more, but she’s already lost in the crowd. In some ways I feel like a reporter, like I’m here to watch and report back to someone. But I can’t imagine the Board being interested, although I can picture Oskar squatting while he pulls up tiny weeds and asks questions about why people here are fighting each other, questions I can only answer a little so far.
Justice and Robyn will be interested. So will Kelley. So those three are my audience, and of course, me. This is what I came for, and as I’m helping ladle out soup I feel like I’m part of something active, something that’s an adventure.
The supplies last for two blocks. As dark finishes filling the street, candles come out of pockets and in a few places, fires dance in portable fireplaces or even just on the street.
Mei smiles tiredly. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” I don’t tell her that I liked helping, since I don’t know what I think of these people yet. I like Tom, don’t like Ida, and Mei is too perfect.
Mei smiles, and even her teeth are perfect. “Do you have a watch?”
We don’t but our phones tell time.
“Tom will be there until midnight or so,” Mei tells us. “Don’t be late.”
That gives us three hours.
“Do come back and help with the sorting. We’ll do that in the morning.”
“Okay.”
She turns to go back, and people make room for her. Maybe Portland does love Powell’s.
As soon as we’re alone, I turn to Monday. “I want to find Raj.”
“You’re crazy,” she says. “There’s thousands of people here.”
Burnside is growing more crowded. We pass a group with signs that say, “Free Lord,” and two of the signs say, “Free our Lord.”
“We should leave,” Monday says. “Now. I don’t like it here.”
A group of singing monks walks near us, going the same way, not singing at the moment, but picking up trash from the street. They do this reverently in the midst of all the noise, like the trash matters more than the people. Or maybe the absence of trash matters more than the presence of people. I do like it here. I like the sense of purpose, and the monks and the families and the slight hint of danger. “I don’t want to leave the airplanes.”
She gives me a look of daggers but doesn’t say anything. For a moment, I’m utterly afraid that she’ll leave me, but then she smiles and I think she won’t.
As we get closer to what feels like the center of the protest, people sound angrier. The look on Monday’s face reminds me she hates this, so much I almost feel guilty. I want to make sure Raj is okay; that’s the only thing I can really think about. I understand it’s probably futile, but I don’t care.
We search up and down crowded streets, the night air chilling. Two men in thick coats whistle at us and we drop our heads and weave a bit through the crowd until we lose them. A woman with a tiny brown dog clutched to her breast lets us pet it, and all the while its big eyes scan the crowd and its ears stick straight up.
We hit a knot of people too thick to go through easily, and Monday pulls me aside. “Stop for a minute,” she says.
We find room to sit in a doorway. A child who can’t be much more than four years old squeals as his father tickles him in a makeshift camp to our right. They have a battery-operated lantern that throws bright light up to show us the faces of people passing by.
Monday says, “I don’t like Kevin Lord, and I don’t like Ida.”
“What about Raj and Bryce?” I ask her. “What about this whole thing? Isn’t this what Justice sent us to find out about?”
“Maybe. But we don’t belong here. We could die.” In the darkness her expression is hard to read. “Maybe I don’t belong anywhere.”
I can’t go back now; Portland has made the garden even smaller. Four people walk by arguing about something loudly, but I can see they’re friends in spite of the loud words, or maybe family. “I feel like I’m doing something good. Like I matter now. That’s what I left home to do.”
“How do either of us matter?” Monday mutters, keeping her voice soft. “This is so big.”
“Do you have anything else you want to do?” I ask her.
Three people go by on bicycles wearing white shirts. “Let’s go to Seattle. We could get bicycles and ride there.”
I laugh. “I do want to go back tonight.”
“Why?”
“To give Tom his aspirin. Because we said we would.”
She shakes her head at me again. “You’re such a bleeding heart.”
“Oskar always said it’s the little things that matter. I didn’t used to believe him.”
“Oskar and Robyn would get along,” Monday snaps.
“We can go to Seattle after this is over.”
A man walks by with a homemade torch, the light so bright I can’t see anything for a moment. The little boy from the camp screeches, “Light!” and his mother laughs and tells him “Yes, yes, there is light in the world.” She sounds happy.
After the torch passes, Monday sighs. “Okay. So we keep looking for the head do-gooders and the center of the danger. Then what?”
“We find some way to help.”
“Like sing?”
I can’t stand it that we’re arguing. I take a deep breath and tell her, “You sing better than me.”
Even in the near dark I can see the smile bloom on her face, and it feels like it’s just me and her again, like we are the most important things in each other’s world. This has never been true for me before. I need her, and say so. “I don’t want to lose track of you.”
She holds my hand. Her hand is warm, and strong, a little bigger than mine. We sit that way for quite a while, watching people go by, listening to singing and chanting and talk and laughter and complaints. Ever since we left Powell’s there has been no gunfire and no screaming. We could almost be at a party the size of Portland except for the way people look carefully around them and the laughter that sounds too loud and too forced.
Monday looks disappointed when I ask if she’s ready to keep going. We search through the crowds, not stopping, just walking and pushing and avoiding. Looking out for Bryce or Raj, listening for words or phrases that will tell us something. We gather that Kevin in still in jail, that the protest is getting bigger because of it. We are nearly back to the bleachers and stage when I spot a familiar face.
She is moving away from us, a little faster than we are, but headed in the same direction. “Tam!” I call out.
She turns, stops, and stares at us.
“Sage and Monday,” I remind her. “I heard about Kevin. I’m looking for Raj.”
She looks angry. She chews on her lip. “Raj doesn’t think you did it. I’m not so sure.”
“Did what?” Monday I ask in concert.
“Betrayed Kevin. Raj told me they brought you along.”
Monday’s face looks angry now, too. “We didn’t know where Kevin was. The man was leading a protest. So he was visible to anyone.” She isn’t done. She’s almost bouncing and she’s getting loud. “Do you people just blame strangers for fun? You invited us into the hangar. Raj and Bryce came to find us and bring us coffee the morning after we met them. We’re not stalking you.”
Tam holds up her hands. They’re empty, and she carries no belongings. There’s fear on her face as well as anger and it feels like the three of us could end up fighting or she could abandon us, and take any clue to where Raj is with her.
I hold my hands up, too, looking at Monday until she also complies. “We don’t mean you any harm. We just got here. We didn’t even come for the protests.”
She stares at us with suspicion.
“Really,” I continue. “We were with Bryce and Raj and Aisha and there was smoke and gunfire and we left. We’re looking for you. Why would I have called you if I betrayed you?”
This last sentence gets to her although she still doesn’t exactly look ready to trust us. But she nods, and turns and walks off. For the second time in two days we’re following Tam.
She walks almost as fast as she moved on her bicycle. We’re out of breath by the time she leads us to Raj, Bryce, Alicia, Jim, and a few other faces that look familiar from the hanger. They’re sprawled on the grass talking amongst themselves. Raj’s face is in profile at this angle, the light of a candle flickering on his cheeks. I’m surprised at how good it feels to have found them.
The others notice us, and their faces all change. Bryce looks uncertain, and like he hasn’t slept, but then of course he hasn’t. It seems like days since this morning, but it’s not even a whole day. We still have more than two hours before we have to be back.
I don’t want them to question us. I just go into the circle and sit beside Raj. Jim, across from me, gives me a welcome smile that eases some of my worry that we aren’t trusted.
“Where did you go?” Raj asks me.
“Powell’s.” When he doesn’t respond immediately, I remind him, “We told you that’s where we were going. Before we got caught in the bar.”
He laughs. “Yeah, you did.” He pauses, glances at Aisha. “I hoped you’d stay with us.”
“We came back to find you.”
Aisha hesitates. “We’re talking strategy.”
She doesn’t want us around for it. I think about staying anyway, but when I look at Raj he knows it, too, and I can tell he wants to go. He tugs on my arm. “Let’s take a break. I need to think anyway.”
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Aisha warns him, looking at me. She sounds dismissive, like maybe Raj is about to jump off a bridge or something.
“We’re just going to take a walk,” he says. “I won’t be out of sight.”
“Fifteen minutes.” She stands and stretches. “Maybe we should all move. Bryce?”
She and Bryce stand and go together just out of earshot. Raj and I go in a different direction. “We should take Monday,” I tell Raj.
“They’re talking.”
True enough. Monday and Tam are engaged in a fast-paced conversation, Tam’s arms waving and Monday’s crossed over her chest. Jim looks at Raj and says, “I’ll keep an eye on her.”
I bet she’ll love that. But I do want to talk to Raj. And he looks like he wants to talk to me. “Thanks, Jim. We won’t go far.”
In spite of the occasional flashlight and candle, it’s dark enough that I feel separated from Monday after only a few steps.
A torch flies up from the midst of a small crowd in front of us, light turning circles against the dark. “What’s that?” I ask.
“A fire juggler.”
This one is throwing far bigger fire than the one we saw on the street. The crowd blocks our sight of anything except the flame going up and coming down. There isn’t really anything good to climb on, so we stand and watch from a distance. “Are you okay?” I ask him. “I’m sorry about Kevin. Do you know what happened?”
“Not really. He was a few blocks down Burnside by Chinatown at the main stage when he was overwhelmed. We don’t think he was hurt. But we haven’t had any new information for hours. The nets are all down now.”
“Where are they keeping him?”
“Storm’s new jail downtown.” Raj’s face is cold and hard, a look I’m not used to thinking about when I think of him. “He keeps it full.”
“Have you been there?”
“No.” He looks around, reminding me a little bit of the brown dog. Alert. “It’s supposed to be very modern. Runs on solar power with backup generators. Biggest thing the city’s built Post. A goddamn jail. And Storm got a lot of people liking it, told everyone it would keep them safe from looters.”
Raj sounds so bitter I feel sorry for him. It’s not the voice he usually uses. “Has Kevin been caught before?”
“No.”
“So are Bryce and Aisha the leaders now?”
“There’s a lot of leaders left. It’s a problem.”
“Are you worried?”
“I feel better now that I’ve found you.” He puts his arm around me, and he’s warm and smells like sweat and smoke and coffee. “I know you didn’t betray us.”
“How?”
He laughs. “You don’t know enough.”
That stings but it’s also a relief, like a deep worry I hadn’t known was eating me lifts. I slide my arm around his waist, feeling what it’s like to hold and be held. I like it. “What are you going to do next?”
The muscles in his side tense under my hand. “Bryce is afraid that if we fight, they’ll kill Kevin.”
I think back to the book from the hangar. “You don’t believe in violence.”
“Three protestors died today.”
The flame shoots up and twirls again, the crowd clapping. Even though I’m worried and I’m watching for greens, it still feels more like a party than a fight. “What do you want to happen next?”
“Kevin doesn’t allow violence anymore. So if you see some, it’s not Free Portland. He’d want us to use sheer numbers to own the streets until there’s no room for Storm or his trucks full of greens.” Raj lets me go and steps away to stand up on tiptoe and look around.
“What are you looking for?”
“Danger. Greens.”
“Is it okay?”
“It’s too dark to tell.” He slides his arm back and I’m warm again. “We can’t be like Storm, but it’s hard to stay peaceful when I’m so mad.”
“I met a man on the road who said to be polite, but then don’t miss when that doesn’t work. He helped me get part of the way here.” Raj tenses so I quickly add, “He and his family. We walked together for hours, but then I had to help Monday and I lost track of him.”
“I thought this would be over yesterday. It takes so long.”
I don’t have anything to say to that so I just squeeze him a little, kind of startled at my audacity. It’s a big step for me, this being so close to a boy and touching him. He smells good, he feels good. Solid. Even though nothing in this new world is solid. I’ve traded boring for new, and the new in this moment is good. It hasn’t all been good, it’s been scary and bloody and uncertain, and this is new and uncertain, but I’m really content in this small moment. Everything since I left the garden is more intense, the colors, the feelings, the noises. Like being fully alive.
“Do you have a place to stay?”
I nod. “Powell’s.”
“Really? I heard no one gets in there unless they have books. There’s an old man who guards the only glass door left with a gun.”
I laugh while I try to imagine where Tom would keep a gun. “He’s enchanted with Monday. She’s a reader.”
“She’s a puzzle,” he muses. “Tough.”
Some of it’s really fear, but I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t want me to say that. “She’s brave.”
“So are you.”
I laugh at that, since it isn’t true.
He continues, “I thought I liked Monday best, but you’re easier to be friends with.”
This makes my cheeks hot.
I look over at Monday and she’s not there anymore. It’s all wrong, in fact. Screwed up. There is a hole in the crowd, people moving away from the center of an ever-widening circle. In the middle, three greens struggle with Aisha. Her blonde hair is the only way I’m even sure it’s her since they are so much bigger.
“Run.” I let go of him and grab for his hand. “Greens.” Although he’s craned his head and seen them, too.
“No.” He traps me in his arms. “Draw no attention.” He’s still looking, and I make myself hold still even though it’s hard. I search for Monday’s black hair and oval face, and she’s nowhere. Tam either.
“We’re going to look weird because we’re standing still.”
He shakes his head, keeps looking. The crowd seems to have decided as one that they are all far enough away, and some push toward the edges while others keep moving; the front of the line seems to bubble.
There’s nothing to see, no way to get a big enough picture. I squeeze Raj’s hand so hard it hurts my hand. Finally, he looks down at me, and his face is soft. “Walk carefully away. Be slow.”
We walk together, our strides matched, his arm back around my waist.
“I need to know if Monday got away.”
“Did you see Bryce?” he asks.
“No.”
Soon we’re at the edges of the crowd around the fire juggler. The clapping and calling keeps us from talking. Raj pushes us politely and firmly in where three people have just left, and in another moment we slide in a few feet more. There are people behind us now, all around. It feels tight, almost like being on the stake truck. Even the bleachers earlier weren’t this bad. People I don’t know are so close they have to touch me.
I’m glad of Raj and worried about Monday and Bryce and Aisha and even Jim.
We’re close enough to see details about the juggler. He’s a small man, sweaty and bare-chested. His hair sticks to his cheeks and his eyes look as bright as the fire, as if he is mesmerized by it or has sent himself into some altered state to deal with the heat. I can feel it even from this distance. He throws the wand of flame up to spin and turn against the dark sky. The crowd steps back like a single beast and then forward as he catches the end of the brand that isn’t burning.
A little girl sitting on her father’s shoulders claps and squeals.
We keep moving forward until we’re near the front. The heat of the brands is so intense that I touch my hair to make sure it’s not burning. I turn my head from time to time, checking to be sure there are no greens pushing after us. There is a man in a green shirt on the far side. Like us, he is watching the juggler. I am careful not to catch his eye.
Three more throws and I’m shaking now from the crowd pressing in. “I need to see Monday.” It’s become the only thing I can think about, like finding Raj was earlier.
The juggler throws particularly high, and this time as the brand comes down, Raj starts us moving back. He’s good at this, at maneuvering through so many people. In another throw we’re out and walking. “Hold me close,” he says. “Look like two lovers. They might not expect that.”
I feel like the other day when I had the glass of beer and it made me excited and a little ill and all funny. We fall in with a crowd of people heading toward Burnside, walking like we’re with them, my arm tight around his waist and my hand riding his hip. We get near where we left the others, and Aisha is gone, the greens too. There is no sign of Monday or Tam or Jim. I stare at the places I want them to be as if that will make them appear. “Maybe we should try the bar,” I suggest.
“They’ll be watching it.”
“Monday might go to Powell’s.”
“I should take you there anyway. Then at least I know you’re safe.”
When we get to Burnside the group breaks up and people go every which way.
A gun goes off somewhere close, making me duck and flinch.
Raj pulls me into a doorway, maybe the same doorway where Monday and I sat earlier. I can’t quite tell with the light different. There is no family camped to the side.
He leans me against the wall. He is breathing hard and I guess I am, too. Fear. Adrenaline. Worry.
He puts a hand on the back of my neck.
He looks down at me, his face hard to see in the shadows, just dark eyes and a dark face, momentarily illuminated by a flashlight and then dark again. He comes close to me and whispers. “Thank you for finding me.”
“Yes.” We’ve already said this, of course.
“I want you to stay safe.” His breath tickles my cheek. “I want to take you to the bookstore and I want you to go in whether we find Monday or not. I’ll look for her if she’s not there.”
For the first time in my life, someone trying to tell me what to do feels sweet. I’m not willing to promise him. “I can’t stay if she’s not there. She wouldn’t abandon me.”
He seems to like it that I won’t do what he says. His mouth finds mine, and for the first time ever I am being kissed. He is gentle and hungry all at once. His breath and my breath mingle. He tastes different than I expected, spicy and warm.
I like the kiss, love the kiss, fall into it. I understand why books and movies say the first kiss matters.
His heartbeat pulses beneath my palm, which is on his chest.
He takes my hand and pulls it away from his heart and steps in so we are even closer together, touching almost everywhere. He is hot and I’m tingling at being so close to him, like all my nerves have gone off at once.
His hand caresses the back of my hair and we become one being sharing a single skin.
It almost hurts when he lets me go.
“Come on. Let’s get to the bookstore.” His voice shatters a spell and I breathe deeply for the first time since he pulled me in here, starved and shaking.
I have become a different person. Transformed. In an instant.
We return to the street and I feel so light I barely think about the protest or the lights even as we’re surrounded again by people and noise and the hot emotions of the crowd. It is as if the kiss formed a bubble around me.