Read The Necessary Beggar Online
Authors: Susan Palwick
The Necessary Beggar (24 page)
“I guess everybody had a bad day,” Zamatryna said. She was going to tell Aliniana about Timbor's customer, but her aunt and grandfather both looked at her, their eyebrows raised, and she realized that she'd given herself away. Maybe she'd meant to.
“You had a bad day?” Timbor asked quietly. “What happened, dear one?”
“Oh, nothing, really. My guidance counselor hassled me about some stupid stuff. He wants me to change the name of the gardening club. He thinks âGrowing Girls' is sexist and will keep boys away. I told him boys didn't want to join anyhow.”
Timbor chuckled. “You could call it Planting Persons.”
“Or Horticulture Helpers,” Aliniana said.
“Or Fertilizing Folks,” said Zamatryna, and they all laughed.
“Get some boys to join with the name you have now,” said Aliniana. She put the last grocery item, a bag of rice, in the pantry and sat down at the table. “Then the counselor will not complain. What about your boyfriends? How many do you have this week? Three? Get them to join.”
Zamatryna wrinkled her nose. “They aren't really boyfriends, Auntie. They're just people I do things with. Bill from cheerleading, he's gay, so we just hang out, and Donald from the yearbook is funny but we're just friends, and Enrico's just my math study partner, that's all. They're nice guys, but I'm not in
love
with any of them. I'm too young for that.”
love
with any of them. I'm too young for that.”
“Oh, oh,” Aliniana said, rolling her eyes and throwing her hands in the air, “excuse me, I forgot how grown-up you are, so grown-up that you know you aren't grown-up enough to be in love, well excuse me, Miss Zama, but that's very silly. When you fall in love you won't sit down and weigh it all out like meat, so many pounds of this and that, and what's the best thing for dinner. It will just happen. It is your soul matching someone else's. When I met Macsofo”âshe gave a huge sigh, and Timbor and Zamatryna smiled at each other, knowing they were in for a familiar taleâ“oh, I looked at him and I knew at once that I would be with him forever. It was in the courtyard of my parents' house, where he had come to fix a brick wall. The first day I just watched him, and the second day I spoke to him about the weather and the garden, and the third day I gave him a cup of water and our hands touched, and I knew then that he knew, too.” She sighed; her eyes had begun to grow moist, as they always did when she remembered Lémabantunk.
“Some souls match at once,” Timbor said mildly, “but some souls only join over time.” Zamatryna knew he thought that Aliniana and Macsofo were growing apart; she had heard him discussing it with her father. Macsofo often came home from work later than he should have, and he was often moody. He had never gotten over his bitterness at their exile; Zamatryna thought he didn't want to. “And this is America, Aliniana. Zama must do as people do here.”
“Other American girls have boyfriends,” Aliniana said.
“If you're with only one guy, he wants to have sex,” Zamatryna said. “I don't want to do that yet. I want to wait.” One of her more persistent theories about Darroti's tragedy, based on careful study of soap operas, was that Gallicina had been pregnant, and had pursued the family in rage that her child had also been killed, also been broken and silenced. “Lisa says that's really smart.”
“Smart,” Aliniana scoffed. “Certainly it is smart. But when you meet the man you love, smart will fly out the door. Certain things you cannot plan, Miss Zama. Certain things are gifts you could not have imagined. That is why, at home, people getting married gave gifts, instead of receiving them: to repay what they received in each other. People here act like the man and the woman getting married are poor!”
Zamatryna shrugged. “Sometimes they are.”
“Not if they love each other!”
“People who love each other still need furniture and cooking pots,” Timbor said. “I think it the same thing, Alini: a way of using humans to represent the graciousness of the Elements. And some people getting married here ask their guests to give to the poor. A passenger of mine said her daughter was doing that.”
“Ellie Etiquette says that's bad form,” Zamatryna said. “She had a column about it in the paper last week. You aren't supposed to ask your guests to do that, because you aren't supposed to act like you're assuming they're going to give you anything at all.”
“Aaaaah.” Aliniana waved a hand in disgust. “That is stupid. People here are selfish.”
“Some people in Gandiffri were stupid and selfish, too,” Timbor said. “Lémabantunk was not paradise, even if it was home.”
“Aaaah, listen, last week I did manicures for a young woman getting married, and her mother, and very fussy they were too, and all they could talk about was the gifts she was getting, where she was registered and who had bought her which piece of fancy china and why hadn't uncle so-and-so been willing to spend more than thirty-five dollars, and didn't I think that was a shame? I never even learned the husband's name! Does this sound to you like someone in love, or someone generous?”
“Did they tip?” Zamatryna asked.
“Yes, but only ten percent.” Aliniana sniffed, and Zamatryna and her grandfather shared another smile. “Listen, Miss Zama, when you get married, you give gifts to your guests. You be generous.”
“She is already generous,” Timbor said.
“Well, I'll try to remember my husband's name, anyway.” Zamatryna looked at Timbor and said, “Are you going to try to find that woman tomorrow? The homeless woman?”
“I will look for her, yes, if I can. If my routes permit it.”
“Take her a jar of peanut butter. We have two now. Peanut butter and some crackers. She doesn't need a place to cook, to eat that.”
Timbor patted her hand. “You are a good child, Zamatryna.”
And then the phone rang and it was her friend Suki from Growing Girls, calling with a request from a woman who needed her rose bushes trimmed, and of course Zamatryna had to tell her about the conversation with Rumpled Ron, and then the twins came home from wrestling practice and Macsofo and Erolorit came home from their jobs and it was time for dinner, and then Zamatryna had homework to do, with half her brain, while she talked on the phone with Jenny from cheerleading and Ross from the yearbook; and then Bill and Donald and Enrico all called, one after the other, so she talked to them too; and by the time she went to sleep, she was feeling much better. She had
lots
of friends, and her grades were good, and that meant she was successful; and if she was successful, she had to be happy.
lots
of friends, and her grades were good, and that meant she was successful; and if she was successful, she had to be happy.
But putting her clothing awayâfor she had maintained her habits of neatness from childhoodâshe saw the beetle in its jar, and felt a pang of guilt. She only fed it once a day now, and she saw that this morning's lettuce had begun to rot. That couldn't be very nice for the beetle. So she unscrewed the lid of the jar and held the insect gently between her fingers, so it couldn't fly away, and dumped the lettuce into a tissue with her free hand. She'd flush the tissue down the toilet. “You'll get more food tomorrow,” she told the beetle. “I don't have any more right now. I didn't bring you anything from dinner, you stupid thing. I'm sorry.”
X.
Zamatryna shook her head. “Gallicina, I hope you weren't this boring when you were a person.” Then, with a sigh, she dumped the beetle back in the jar and replaced the lid. What a dull life the creature led! No flowers, no sunshine, just bits of lettuce and radish, and drops of water, and the slick sides of a glass jar. Such an existence had to be as bad as Stan's hell, as painful and dreary as roasting like a chicken would have been. “I'm tired just looking at you,” Zamatryna said, her compassion mingled with disgust. “I'm going to bed now. Goodnight, Gallicina.”
She was tired the next day, too: tired and irritable, sick of classes. She sat with the yearbook staff during lunchâshe tried to rotate between the yearbook, the cheerleaders, and the gardenersâbut couldn't interest herself in gossip about whether the school nurse's picture looked so much better this year than last because she'd been giving herself Botox injections. Zamatryna picked listlessly at her fruit and cottage-cheese salad, which was only food here, which didn't contain anyone's soul. She found herself wondering what her life would have been like if the family had been able to stay in Lémabantunk. Would she have been bored there, too, learning to cook and clean house, keeping the garden, maybe helping out in the Market? Had
Gallicina been bored? Was that why she had fought so hard to be a Mendicant?
Gallicina been bored? Was that why she had fought so hard to be a Mendicant?
She sighed and excused herself from the table, getting up to bus her tray. When she turned around she saw Jerry Zanger, the senior quarterback of the football team, coming toward her. He was Jenny's boyfriend. He was going to UNR next year to study accounting, and he was the most boring person Zamatryna had ever met. All the air seemed to drain out of the room whenever he opened his mouth.
He stopped a foot away from her, and blinked. “Hey, Zama.”
“Hey, Jerry.” She stood waiting to hear what he'd say next, and trying to be patient. Jerry's synapses fired very slowly; she always pictured them trying to turn over, like a car engine, and failing. Jerry's brain needed a new starter.
He scratched his ear, and blinked again. “So, Zama, Suki told Jenny you talked to Rumpled Ron yesterday. And Jenny told me.”
“Yes, Jerry,” Zamatryna said, trying not to gasp for oxygen like a beached fish, “I did talk to Rumpled Ron yesterday.” Behind her, she heard someone in the yearbook clique snicker, and immediately felt a visceral surge of indignation. Jerry was pathetic, but they still shouldn't laugh at him. “But I can't imagine why you'd find that interesting.”
Jerry coughed. “Well, Suki told Jenny that Rumpled Ron says you need guys in that, uh, gardening club. And that you need a new name.”
“Ron says it would be a good idea to add guys,” Zamatryna agreed politely. “If we add guys, I guess we need another name. Do you know any guys who want to be added?”
“Well,” Jerry said, shifting from one foot to the other, “Coach is saying the football team should do community service. To show people we aren't just dumb jocks.” Someone at the table began making choking sounds; Zama turned around and saw Ross doing a Heimlich maneuver on Christabel, the Layout Goddess.
“Oh, cut it
out
,” she snapped, and Christabel hawked up a piece of chicken, and Ross gave a thumbs-up sign, and everybody else at the table made vomiting noises. “Go back to kindergarten,” Zamatryna said, and turned back to Jerry. She wondered if he had any idea that they were making fun of him.
out
,” she snapped, and Christabel hawked up a piece of chicken, and Ross gave a thumbs-up sign, and everybody else at the table made vomiting noises. “Go back to kindergarten,” Zamatryna said, and turned back to Jerry. She wondered if he had any idea that they were making fun of him.
“It's okay,” he said. “Football people and yearbook people never get along. It's an ancient rivalry. Like the Middle East, without car bombs.”
Zamatryna felt her eyebrows rising. “He knows the word
rivalry
,” Christabel said in a stage whisper.
rivalry
,” Christabel said in a stage whisper.
“He's studying for the SATs,” someone else whispered backânot Ross, or Zamatryna would have hit him over the head with her cafeteria trayâand Jerry actually laughed.
“I already took them, dumbass. I didn't do so badly, either. Zama, do you need help with that tray?”
“No,” she said. “But I need to bus it. Come on, tag along, and tell me whatever you were going to say before they started their little comedy routine.”
“Well,” he said, standing next to her as she dumped her uneaten salad into the trash, “the football team needs community service, like I said. And a bunch of us do lawnwork anyway. Pruning bushes, mowing grass, you know, that kind of stuff.”
“Stuff with power tools,” Zama said, tossing her silverware into a tray of soapy water.
“Yeah,” Jerry said, falling into step beside her as she left the cafeteria, “stuff with power tools: that's right. So I thought we could team up with you. It would make sense. But then you need a new name.”
“You mean the football team doesn't want to be known as Growing Girls?” Zamatryna asked, and Jerry laughed again.
“No, I don't think so. But then I thought we should help you with the name.”
“Ah,” Zamatryna said. “That's very nice of you. Well, I'd like to keep it as a pun, and something that alliterates.”
“Oh,” Jerry said. She wondered if he'd ask what “alliterate” meant if he didn't know. There was a long pauseâshe was walking to her locker now, and he was still beside herâbefore he said, “Well, I'd thought of Seeds of Hope. That's a pun, isn't it?”
“No. It's a cliché. That's not the same thing.”
“Oh. Okay.” Zama started spinning her locker combination, making a list of the books she needed for her afternoon classes. Calc, bioâlab book, not textbookâEnglish. They were reading
Crime and Punishment
, which she found so mind-numbingly dull that being trapped in a glass jar and fed moldy lettuce would have been preferable. “What about Seeds of Kindness?”
Crime and Punishment
, which she found so mind-numbingly dull that being trapped in a glass jar and fed moldy lettuce would have been preferable. “What about Seeds of Kindness?”
“What?” She turned, vaguely startled that Jerry was still there.
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