MARTians Read online

  How much do you love me, AnnaMom? I love you all the doorknobs and a bubble bath. I love you a pink-striped washcloth. I love you all that.

  I choose one of the other, ordinary spoons.

  MORTimmer puts a mug of coffee into my hand and then he balances a squished doughnut on the rim. Some of the red goo clings to his thumb until he wipes it on the towel draped around his shoulders. That’s another virgin towel so very ruined.

  I pack while MORTimmer sleeps on my mother’s bed. Instead of a box, I use the bag Ms. Brody gave me. I put the book at the bottom, then my pink bunny bowl and my ordinary spoon, six pairs of clean underpants, my pajamas, my toothbrush, my striped washcloth, and the adventure towel. I look in my closet where my school clothes smile like flowers dipped in sugar. I shut my eyes and brush my hand along those clothes like I did each morning before I went to school, when I needed a costume that would shelter me, hold me, make me happy. They exhale a little fresh scent, just like they are supposed to do. Still, no sleeves cling to my fingertips. Nothing says, Pick me! Pick me! so I can open my eyes and smile and think, Yes! This! Kawaii! So I open my eyes and I choose a sweater, because it might get cold later. AnnaMom always said that, every day: It might get cold later, ZeeZeeBee. Take a sweater. So I choose a sweater, and then I shut the door and leave the rest of the clothes wilting in the dark.

  My phone sings. I answer. It is a robocall that says, “Hssshhsh . . . Zindleman, Zoh-EE, sskksh . . . you are part of the AllMART family!” Then the phone sings again and I think it might be AllMART calling, but it is the text message confirmation of my job offer, which requires a response acknowledgment.

  I walk into the master bedroom, where MORTimmer is stretched out diagonally across the bed with a pillow clutched in each arm. There is still a little water pooled in the hollow of his lower spine, which surprises me, but there it is, a pearl of water come to rest.

  My phone sings again, but I thumb it quiet fast, just sneaking a look at the caller ID. It isn’t my AnnaMom. I step into my own room, shut my door, and check the message. “It’s always Q-MART! Q-MART is your savings store, all you want and even more. . . . This message is for . . . click ZOO ZINDLEMAN click. Congratulations! . . . click . . . ZOO . . . click. . . . You have been selected for a position with Q-MART.” Then it’s the job offer text awaiting my reply.

  I have a choice to make, a great big might-matter-for-the-rest-of-my-life choice. On one hand, I don’t want MORTimmer to think I listened to him and chose AllMART because I respect his opinion. On the other hand, I do not want to accept any job offered to a person named ZOO.

  “Last Girl? I heard the phone.” He is standing on the other side of my hollow bedroom door.

  I stand up and say, “Yes. It was about the jobs. I will start on Monday at AllMART.” I reply yes to the text.

  “I can help you pack now,” he says.

  “I think I’m done,” I say, and I open the door. “I think I have everything.” I hold out the AllMART bag. I don’t mean for him to take it, but he does; then he turns and walks down the hallway toward the stairs. He’s wearing a shirt now, but I still wonder about that drop of water and gravity and other unnameable things.

  “No boxes?” he calls up the stairs. “A suitcase?”

  AnnaMom took the suitcases. She knew what she needed, what she wanted, and she took it.

  I’m still here.

  I don’t know what I need. But I know what I want, and it isn’t here.

  “The bag. It’s all in the bag.”

  “Well, if you have food, we can bring that. Food is useful. Especially cereal.”

  The Warren isn’t a house. It’s a dinky, dusty, abandoned strip mall. MORTimmer parks his car in a delivery alley between some Dumpsters. Here, in the back, all the doors are gray metal rectangles in the windowless wall. The business names are written in black block letters on the doors. It isn’t inviting, but then it isn’t meant to be. The alley is not the face that the stores show to the customer.

  “Shut your eyes,” says MORTimmer. “I want it to be a surprise.” He pulls open a door. I don’t know why I should have to close my eyes; it is so dark in there I can’t see a single thing. Then he takes my hand and says, “Come on.” I don’t shut my eyes. I don’t pull my hand away from his either. He pulls me into a small, hot space full of rumbling noise. The heavy door behind us clicks shut.

  “You can open your eyes now,” he says. It is so dark he has no idea if my eyes are open or shut, but he’s pulling me forward, three steps and a little stumble, and then there is the light of a door opening in front of us.

  My eyes adjust.

  We are in one of the stores. No, not a store, a public laundry. I’ve never been in a place like this. The thought of it makes me cringe a little. Imagine, washing my underpants where some stranger had just washed — who knows what? Sheets full of body dirt? Baby pants smeared with all the smelly things that come out of babies? I smell hot clothes, detergent, and drains. The faint smell of dirty water reminds me of Room 2-B. It does not remind me of home. It’s another thing I’ve lost, the quiet growl of the dryer on a cold night while AnnaMom and I eat microwave popcorn in the kitchen and the whole world smells of fabric softener and butter.

  Rub-a-Dub-Tub. Someone has painted a mural over the windows. Blue birds are hanging striped towels, pink and green and white, on a clothesline. Painting on the windows is very low budget / low return as far as advertising goes. I’m not impressed. I am not persuaded.

  “This is 5er.”

  A little boy is perched on top of a service counter beside a cash register. He isn’t wearing anything but underpants. He has long, bony feet and long, bony toes. I look away. Behind him, a screen is flickering pictures. The sound is turned off, but I can read the crawl along the bottom. I can’t help myself. I can’t ignore a screen. . . .

  . . . closed due to smoke from fires in the area. Traffic is being diverted. Don’t depend on GPS updates. Depend on Channel 42. All the answers are on Channel 42.

  “5er. Hey, man. This is Zoë. This is the last girl I told you about. She lives with us now. Say hi, okay? Say hi.”

  The little boy puts one hand out. He doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t say anything.

  I put my hand out. Maybe I’m supposed to shake hands. . . . The kid jerks his hand away and hides it behind his back. He shuts his eyes tight.

  “It takes 5er a while to get used to new people. Doesn’t it, man? But don’t worry. It’s okay. It’s all okay. We shower back there.” MORTimmer points at a garden hose hanging from the ceiling. There’s no curtain. Just a garden hose and sprinkler nozzle hanging over a drain in the floor. “We got a toilet. And sinks. We talked about maybe stealing a bathtub or inflatable raft and setting up a cool pool-and-shower deal, but it isn’t practical, you know?”

  “You live here?”

  “This is the Warren. It’s a good place to live. Safe. Close to AllMART. Come on. Let me show you.” He walks behind the counter and opens a door to another room, small. There is a metal desk with an office chair on top of it shoved into the corner. The rest of the floor space is covered with a mattress and a snarl of blankets. “This is our bedroom,” says MORTimmer. “You can put your stuff in one of the desk drawers.”

  “I’m supposed to sleep here? On the floor with you?”

  “Well, at least until I can get you another bed, you can sleep with me and 5er, yeah.”

  “No. Look, I’m sorry, but no. Can you just take me home? This is a mistake. I want to go home.”

  “Home? Terra Incognita?” He puckers his mouth and sighs. “No can do at the moment. I gotta go ta work. You just sit tight, here, with 5er. We can talk when I get back.”

  “I need to charge my phone.”

  MORTimmer points to a charging pad sitting on the counter beside a pyramid of tiny soap packets.

  “Thank you.” I place my phone on the charger and see the blink of light that means it is sipping energy.

  “She isn’t going to call,” says
MORTimmer.

  Then he leaves like that’s all there is to it. Like he knows me, my AnnaMom, or the future.

  When the door closes behind MORTimmer, I know I can just walk out the door myself. I can leave. Nothing is stopping me. Except — I don’t know what I would do once I passed through that door and it closed behind me. I want to be home, but I don’t know how I’d get there. So I sit down on a stiff plastic chair and stare at the screen. There are many things happening in the world; I see them, one after the other, and the words crawl by. I imagine very hard that I am at school. That whiff of bad water, the screen, the crawl of words along the bottom. It is easy to imagine that I am really, truly in Room 2-B and everything is not changed.

  For the first time in days, my knotted thoughts untie. For the first time in days, I feel comfort. I let the screen tell me about the world. I open my eyes and that’s all I have to do.

  Chad Manley: Tonight might be a good night for stargazing.

  Sallie Lee: Wish upon a falling star!

  Chad Manley: But it will be satellites, not stars, falling. It’s called satellite rain. And the forecast is for showers. Here to explain is satellite rain expert stratusmeterologist Gavin Kelly.

  Scene: Gavin Kelly walks briskly down a hall, because that’s what experts do, they walk briskly, in halls. Then, depending on what they are expert in, they may sit at a desk, or a gloved hand may fill minitubes with measured doses. Gavin Kelly, stratusmeterologist, fills no minitubes. We see his hands over a keyboard, he waves at the display screen, and we see what he sees, an endless scroll of numbers.

  The numbers fly past so quickly I can’t begin to read them, which makes me nervous. But I don’t need to process those numbers; they have been understood by the expert who explains it all using animation.

  Scene: Deep space around the earth, satellites migrate on blue solar-cell wings. They are invisible to us, but we have no secrets from them. Their eyes are complex. Our whispers make their golden foil tremble, and they connect our echoes each to each. Without them, we couldn’t order a pizza.

  But sometimes, sometimes the winds of gravity or the tides of sunlight push the little crafts off course. It is the smallest error made a billion times, growing bigger and bigger and bigger. A shave of an electronic cent stolen a billion times is a million dollars.

  I recognize the phenomenon: It’s called feedback runaway. Sometimes people call it a chain reaction, but a chain reaction just plods along. Feedback runaway is explosive, especially in human beings. When people fall into feedback runaway loops, there are boom-and-bust cycles in the markets. People rush to the stores to buy three lifetime supplies of vacu-packed dehydrated celery. But this is not about people and money; this is about satellites.

  A golden wing is in the path of another satellite. Smash! The mechanical butterflies collide, shatter, and fall, a sparkle party in the dark.

  Scene: Channel 42 News studio

  Chad Manley: Ha-ha! It’s no laughing matter. This means further telecommunication disruptions.

  Sallie Lee: Local fiber-optic cable will not be affected, but cross-system data flow may be interrupt —

  The screen goes blank and fills with static.

  Chad Manley: Ha-ha, haha. That was our production technician Sanjay. Gotcha!

  Sallie Lee: Got us!

  Chad Manley: What a tease!

  Sallie Lee: Of course you can count on Channel 42 for uninterrup —

  (Static fills the screen again.)

  Sallie Lee: Our apologies. That was not funny, Sanjay!

  (CUT TO COMMERCIAL)

  Scene: Black screen

  Voice one (male voice): Don’t lose touch. Opt for fiber optics.

  Voice two (female voice): Fiber optics? Isn’t that old-fashioned?

  Voice one: Yes . . . if dependability is old-fashioned. Satellite transmissions are fine for moving data, but what about something far more important? What about love? Choose fiber optics for messages that matter. Perfect security. Perfect transmissions. Perfect. Love.

  (Tiny print scrolls past in a blur: “Speed of transmission and data security cannot be guaranteed. Seven-year contract. Activation and roaming fees additional.”)

  Scene: Channel 42 News studio

  Chad Manley: And now, breaking news: A tragic custody case is unfolding.

  Sallie Lee: Yes, custody battles are always heart-breaking, but this one has a twist — there is a 507-pound tuna at the center of it.

  Chad Manley: Sallie, I know there are plenty of custody battles fought over the family pet.

  Sallie Lee: This tuna isn’t a family pet.

  Scene: Interior of industrial freezer. Giant frozen fish are stretched out on a stainless-steel table.

  A man wearing a hairnet, sanitary gloves, and white coat stands by one of the fish. There is a tight shot of the tag in the tail fin: a scan code, a number, and unreadable letters.

  Man in lab coat: (Incomprehensible words)

  Crawl, English translation: “This is not a grave. This is a valuable fish.” COULD BE WORTH one and a half million dollars!

  Scene: Cut to laughing girl blowing out candles on a birthday cake. The GIF loops. It’s like the candles can never be blown out.

  Sallie Lee: Right after her sixteenth birthday, Delores Perdita Cash boarded a transpacific flight for her first spring break. Her family never saw her again. She was in seat H8 of fateful Flight 815.

  Chad Manley: You remember Flight 815, don’t you, Sallie? We kept all our Channel 42 News viewers up to the minute on the search for the wreckage.

  Sallie Lee: Yes, Chad, up to the minute for all seven months of the search, and . . .

  Scene: Flickering candles on a beach. . . . the one- and two-year anniversaries of the tragedy.

  Chad Manley: There’s been a new development.

  Sallie Lee: The tuna-custody case?

  Chad Manley: When the tuna was caught deep in the Pacific Ocean, it had a plastic Baggie inside it. The contents of the bag included a prescription bottle; the name on the label? Delores Perdita Cash.

  Sallie Lee: After all those years, her family finally has closure.

  Chad Manley: A chance for closure. (Dramatic pause) The fishermen refuse to release the tuna to the family for burial.

  Sallie Lee: Wow, I know I’m supposed to be objective, but that is inhuman. How can they be so cruel?

  Chad Manley: The tuna might bring 9.7 million yen on the auction market.

  The man in the freezer: This is a valuable fish.

  Chad Manley: We’ll be following this story.

  Sallie Lee: You bet we will, Chad. Because Channel 42 viewers want to know.

  At the hour, the cycle begins again: the same stories in the same order — only the ads have changed. This hour they are all for Bats of Happiness, the genuine guano fertilizer. Perfectly organic, perfect in every way: Bats of Happiness.

  I remember the day AnnaMom and I planted the daylilies in front of our house. She spooned dark dirt out of the bag with the red bats printed on it. This will feed our flower babies, ZeeZeeBee. Do you want a bite? NO! I don’t want the flowers inside you to grow out of your ears. And also it’s bat poop. Bat poop is good food for flowers, not my Zoë. You should eat sugar violets and vegetable puffs.

  After that, I look at the screen, but I don’t see anything.

  Timmer carries food when he returns from work — a paper Eateria bag full of burritos. He hands one to me. It feels heavy, damp, and pretty sad. Timmer folds a foily paper wrapper back, takes a bite, and swallows without chewing. Then he tears open a little packet of hot sauce and squirts it on the food. 5er unrolls his burrito bundle and picks through the rice, looking for beans. He has the posture and table manners of a wild ape. I’m not hungry. It seems like I ought to be, but I’m not. I just stand there, holding the burrito, which isn’t hot or cold and doesn’t demand immediate attention.

  “How did you find this place?”

  “I didn’t find this place. Raoul found it. Then Raoul found me.
I was still waiting for them to come back. I still thought that was the deal. So I was living there in Terra Incognita right across from your beiger-beige house.” He looks at me like I’m supposed to say something. But what? That I never noticed that he was there, not ever? Not when he had a family, not when he didn’t. That if you asked me last year who else lived on Terra Incognita, I might have said, The people next door have scary dogs, but I didn’t know their names.

  “For a while I just took care of things, you know? I still had school. I’d already got the family hardship waiver job at AllMART, so work felt like normal. But then, there were hours and hours of being alone. The first days, it was okay. My Grammalita, she never threw any food away, so there were all of these little lumps of leftovers in the freezer. I’d microwave those and the house would smell like dinner, sort of. But it was so quiet. I could leave my shoes in the hallway and nobody yelled about how that could kill Grammalita if she tripped on them and broke her hip, and how she would suffer and die, and how that would always be on my conscience. So there was no yelling, but there was nobody to talk to either. Man, I hated being home. I hated it so much, sometimes I just slept in my car in the parking lot. But then I’d go rushing back to the house the next day because — what if they came back? What if they came back and I wasn’t there?”

  Those words echo inside of me. Yes, what if AnnaMom comes back? She might come back. What if she comes back and I’m not home?

  Zoë-woey, I’m not worried. Don’t you worry.

  But what if?

  Zoë! Shush! Don’t think about that. Don’t you say one more word about that!

  “It still sucked, sitting there in that house with nobody else. And when the bus stopped running, then I needed more money for gas. I was just lucky I had the car. You know? Without the car, I woulda been screwed.”