Portrait of a Donor: A Starters Story (2 page)

Raj knew of a rooftop bar that wouldn’t card us. So I’m sitting here with him and
Lee around a fire pit, sipping sparkling water. Déjà vu of that night at the club.
Turns out Raj has cash. He didn’t do the body bank for the pay; he did it for the
nose job.

“My grandparents wouldn’t let me have the surgery,” Raj says. “They could easily afford
it, but they’re just so old-fashioned.”

“I’m sure mine wouldn’t either,” Lee says. “But they’re dead. Wouldn’t get the vaccine.”

“Why not?” Raj asks.

“Because they were scared,” I say.

“Yours too?” Lee asks.

I nod. My grandma was sure the shot would kill her. She didn’t trust the government.
Who could blame her?

I wonder if Raj has a home. I wonder where I’ll sleep tonight.

“So you said you remembered me,” I say to Lee.

He looks down. “I get these memories.”

“We all do,” Raj says. “What do you remember?”

“Scary things. Weird things. I don’t understand.” Lee puts his head in his hands for
a moment. “I remember …” He lifts his head. “… this long, long fall in the sky. I
see the ground below me coming closer and closer. Then, just as I’m going to hit it,
I stop.”

That sounds familiar, his body falling. I think I saw it.

“Yeah. You did that,” Raj says. “And get this: you did it for fun.”

“Really? No way,” Lee says.

“You’re lucky that body still has two arms and legs,” Raj says, pointing at Lee. We
piece together our memories, each of us offering bits of the puzzle until we
make a whole picture. We get to the conspiracy part.

“So you were Doris,” Lee said, pointing at me. “And you were …”

“Rodney,” Raj says.

“Who’s Rodney?” Lee asks.

“He drove for Prime. And was their bodyguard,” I say. “And you were Tinnenbaum,” I
say, looking at Lee.

“Yeah, that’s the worst,” Lee says.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“He was involved in some messy stuff.” Lee shakes his head. “Something really bad.”

“What?” Raj asks.

Lee rubs his arms a moment, then becomes still. “I remember I ordered someone at Prime
to kill one of the renters.”

Raj and I stare at Lee. He swallows so hard I see his Adam’s apple move.

“Which one?” Raj asks.

“Don’t know.” Lee looks at us with haunted eyes.

“It wasn’t you,” I reach out to touch him. To quiet him.

The look on his face … I can tell that he knows that, but he doesn’t really know it.
His eyes tear up.

“Yeah,” he says. “But I remember it. And it was my body.”

“So these three Prime Enders—Doris, Rodney, and Tinnenbaum—used our bodies to spy
on donors?” Raj asks.

“Not all donors,” I say. “One.”

“I remember her,” Lee says. “Said her name was Callie.”

“We did things with her,” I said, remembering. “Drove around …”

“We ran with her, out of the Music Center,” Raj says.

“We chased her,” Lee says.

“She got away.”

“She’s okay,” I say. “I saw her at Prime just now.”

“It’s getting late.” Raj pays the bill. “Guess I should go home.”

So he has a home. I turn to Lee. “Have you got a place to go?”

He shrugs. “I gave up one of the best squats ever. Thought I was gonna sail out of
Prime a rich Starter.”

“Me too,” I say.

Joke was on us. I risked my life for a big payout that would have meant my survival.
And then … I get zip.

“So you guys have nowhere to go?” Raj asks.

Not only do we have nowhere to go, we have no money. We shake our heads. I hold my
breath to see what he says next.

Raj gets a cab and takes us to his home in Westwood. I’m relieved not to have to find
someplace to squat at this late hour. I don’t think I could face another cold office
building after all we’ve been through tonight. I was hoping Raj’s place would be low-key,
but I swallow hard when I see the neighborhood and size of the houses. Raj’s is not
just the largest on the street, it’s a real megamansion.

“What about your grandparents?” I ask as he pays the cabdriver.

“I’ll sneak you in the back,” he says.

Lee and I wait for Raj to get out of the cab. I tower over Lee, especially with the
killer heels Doris picked out. We both look up at Raj’s mansion. It’s two stories,
surrounded by a tall, ornate iron fence. Suddenly I’m small and unimportant. I don’t
belong here. A shiver goes through me and I blame it on the night air.

Raj gets out and unlocks a side gate. He walks us to the back of the house and then
stops by the rear entrance.

“Wait here,” he whispers.

Lee and I stand there, by a fenced-in swimming pool and a pool house.

“You smell that?” I whisper to Lee.

He sniffs. “No. What?”

“Money,” I say.

Lee smiles. My family was always just squeaking by. My mother’s teaching degree was
worthless when she moved to California after she married my father. After
they divorced, he never paid a penny of child support. My mom and I were left to fend
for ourselves. Money was always on our minds. Everything we bought was generic. People
like Raj never have to choose between a brand name and a plain white box.

The back door opens and Raj motions for us to enter. Lee extends his hand in a ladies-first
gesture. I roll my eyes and go inside.

Raj whispers to us as he leads us down the back hallway. “My grandparents are out.”

“Then why are you whispering?” I ask.

“Because. The servants are sleeping.”

So colonial, this boy.

He takes us to one of the first doors, which opens up to a humongous media room Burgundy
velvet theater seats circle the room, facing the center. Spotlights supply the only
light, making the space dramatic.

“This is great,” Lee says in a hushed voice.

“And it’s soundproof,” Raj says. “The servants aren’t allowed in here, so it’s all
yours.”

He opens the cabinets above and below a counter near a sink. There’s every kind of
snack food I could imagine—popcorn, candy, chips, cookies. The refrigerator is stocked
with drinks and the freezer with ice cream, air yogurt and frozen bananas. On the
counter are an espresso maker and a smoothie blender.

Raj sits in one of the chairs and makes it recline. “To sleep, just press here.”

I notice a bathroom off to the side.

“Want a shower? There’re towels in there,” Raj says. “Even a Jacuzzi.”

Raj grabs blankets from another cabinet and tosses them at us. “Need anything else?”

Lee and I look at each other and then shake our heads. “There isn’t anything else,”
Lee says.

“Just be sure to stay in the room, okay? Don’t leave it. I’ll come see you guys in
the morning.” He glances at a clock projected on the wall. It’s almost two a.m. “Well,
maybe late morning.”

He slips out the door. I run my hand across the top of the closest chair. So plush.

“What do we do first?” I go over to the food counter. “Popcorn? Ice cream sundaes?”

Lee doesn’t answer. I turn back and see him lying in a chair, fully reclined, with
no blanket. Looks like he fell asleep as soon as he sat back. I pick the nearest chair,
kick off my heels, and prepare to do the same.

In the morning, someone calls my name over and over. I open my eyes and see Raj’s
handsome face looking down on me. Smiling. It makes me smile back.

“Sleepyhead. Time to wake up,” he says.

He presses the button that turns my bed back into a chair. I notice he’s wearing a
jacket, like he’s going out.

“Where’s Lee?” I ask.

“Taking a shower. I brought you both some fresh clothes.” He points out two bundles
of clothing on one of the chairs. “Listen, I have to go somewhere, but I’ll be back
soon.”

I almost ask him where he’s going. But I remember he’s doing us a big favor by letting
us crash here, and I decide not to be nosy.

“Sure,” I say. “No problem.”

He tosses his keys from hand to hand. “You guys can just hang here, play with the
holo games.” He heads for the door.

“Raj?”

He stops and turns back. He looks just a little annoyed. “What?”

“I think we were too tired last night to say thanks. For all this.”

“No problem.” He smiles. “See you soon.”

As he goes, I hold up the clothes to see if they fit me. He’s picked out a cute dress
and jacket. Maybe he has a sister? I put them on and they fit perfectly.

Lee comes out of the bathroom. “Pretty. Where’d you get that?”

“Santa.” I gesture to the pants and sweater on the chair. “He left those for you.”

Lee holds them up. “Cashmere. Nice. Where is he?”

“Out. Said he’d be back soon.”

Lee puts the clothes down and shakes his head.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“I was thinking in the shower about our memories. And how long we were asleep at the
body bank.”

“What about it?”

“Doris and Tinnenbaum—heck, even Rodney—had to be themselves sometimes. Otherwise,
they couldn’t do their jobs. But we don’t remember waking up until it was over.”

“That’s right.”

“So who was occupying us the times they couldn’t be?”

Good question. None of us has any memories that didn’t belong to those three.

“Maybe someone else at Prime?” I say. “An assistant?”

“Maybe as a placeholder. Just keeping us there, inside. A babysitter.”

“A bodysitter,” I said. “Staring at the walls or reading zines.”

There are so many hours unaccounted for. What did I do? Will I ever know? What if
I never remember all of it?

“It could drive you crazy,” I said. “Trying to figure out everything you did.”

“I’m already there.”

I pick up the media controls and start a game. It’s a walk-through environmental game
of ancient Egypt, displayed in the middle of the room, in the round stage space that
all the chairs face.

Lee slips into the bathroom to change while I climb inside a pyramid. He comes out
sporting his new clothes and stands near one of the chairs.

“Now who’s pretty?” I ask.

He stares off, deep in thought.

“You’re still thinking about what happened?” I ask.

“It isn’t what happened that’s so scary,” he says. “It’s what could happen now. We
still have these chips in our heads. How do we know no one’s going to use them?”

“The body bank is over.”

“You think the Old Man never made a backup plan?”

That thought hits me like a punch to the gut by some unfriendlie. I play the game
in silence, exploring deeper inside the pyramid. Lee goes to the food and comes back
with a huge bowl of assorted candy. Eventually, he joins me in the game as we hunt
for a golden cat statue.

After a while, the door opens. We freeze until we see it’s Raj.

“Came back to save you,” Raj says.

“What’s that mean?” Lee asks as he pops a gummy alien in his mouth.

Raj gently removes the candy bowl from Lee’s hand and sets it down. “This will rot
your teeth. I’m taking you out.”

I sit in Raj’s super-fancy sports car. I’m beside Raj, close enough to notice his
sweet smell. Sort of like almonds. It’s nice to be with clean people instead of dirty
squatters, like I used to be. I press a button and a makeup mirror slides from a ceiling
panel. I check my face and see Lee’s reflection behind it. He’s in the backseat with
a scowl on his face. I know that look. He’s jealous of everything Raj has. This car,
his house, all his money. It’s hard not to be, when Raj has so much.