The Story Until Now: A Great Big Book of Stories (80 page)

By the time you look for me I’ll laying out my bedroll back here in the Waiting Room, drunk on the silence, happy as a rat in a barrel of rum.

Edwin Ebersole III

One more sleepless night on that toilet of a tour bus, one more dinner of crap freeze-dried packets supplied by Evanescent Tours, no way am I walking back into that.

Why are we still here? I’ll tell you why. The technician never showed up. Docents never showed up. We jammed that retard driver’s face into the surveillcam and an old lady came. It took forever and she was mad as fuck, but she
unlocked the gift shop so this Clyde could herd us out past astronaut T-shirts and bogus moon rocks, shoving us through like a bunch of mountain mice. Six figures blown on this excursion and not one shot of us looking through the giant telescope or any other damn thing and Serena is even more pissed at me because I can’t call a taxi and I damn well won’t fake a heart attack so Lifestar will come and lift us out of here.

As if this dumb hick marching us down a hundred steps in the dark could get Lifestar to do anything but take a piss on him, and besides, how’s Lifestar landing on this Godforsaken crag which I don’t mind, because …

I am damn well not leaving until I get what I came for. Just watch me fake-walking down the steps with you, marking time while everybody follows this Clyde like lemmings to the slaughter. Well, fuck you Clyde, while you herd my family
down
the steps I’m fake-walking, i.e. going backward,
up
the steps, and I’ll hide at the top until you’ve loaded them on and locked everybody in. No way am I piling into that rolling garbage can they call a luxury coach. I’ll luxury you, Evanescent Tours Incorporated, I’ll sue your brains out as soon as I get what I came for and bring her back at which point you might as well know, Serena, you and I are done.

I came up the mountain to get me a sweet, sexy, grown-up Girl Scout. I know she’s out there, like, you think a babe like her wants to stay up here all funky in the woods when she can have me, and everything that comes with? E.g. the little diamond something-something that I brought to lure her out of the hills. It’s in the security pocket in my cargo pants, and in case you were worried about me hunting sweet pussy all alone out here in the dark, I came prepared. Cavalry boots laced up to the knees under the leg extensions I zipped on while you were all flopping around the Overlook, so if there are snakes out there, no worries, This beekeeper’s hat with a see-through veil thing will keep me safe.

I rolled it down like a theater curtain as soon as the hick led us out into the dark. Winners get what they pay for, and I’m here to get mine, so don’t think you can stiff me. The minute you slam the door on that death trap and run for the waiting room I hum a few bars to let her know that I am here and I love her already, and everything good will happen, all she has to do is show herself.

Do you hear me sweetheart?

This is me not-singing, not-crooning this love song that I wrote inside my head on those long, terrible nights in the luxury coach, I’m rolling it out right now, for you.

“Are you lonely, do you miss it, do you want it, do you hate running wild and sleeping in the dirt, would you like something pretty, see I brought it, just for you … ” going into a sort of ooo oooo ooooo … as I come down the steps
and I let it get a little bit louder after I pass that stinking sardine can full of losers and head downhill into the parking lot by the woods where I happen to know you’re hiding out. I get a little bit louder because I love you already and I want to hear, how old are you now, sweetheart, twenty? Eighteen?

Babe, listen to me singing, see me crouching low like a tiger romancing his mate, come to me, sweet baby, let me show you diamonds, and if you like them, I’ll buy you a diamond collar and lead you out of these filthy woods on a diamond leash, and the first thing we’ll do when we get off this stupid mountain is get you into a nice hot shower and scrub you down until your nipples lift and all your skin turns pink and then, you and I can … and then …

Ida Mae Howells

—Now

I’m a Scout and I have sisters now, and Uncle Martha and them can go to hell. It’s sad what happened to Miss Tracie, but they gave me her Girl Scout pin after it happened because she didn’t need it any more, and then we sang “Day is done” and gave her a really nice funeral before we put her in next to Ellie DeVere and some girl named Sallie inside the lime cave under the ledge on the Last Incline.

I love my troop and, you know what? After Uncle Martha and all, I love that there’s only us
sisters
around. We live together and we play together and we belong together and when one of us gets too big for what we were wearing, Melody sees to it, and Martha makes alterations and if there’s nothing on hand Stephanie goes out with the raiding party and they bring back such cute things! Melody’s the oldest, and Melody knows what we need and who gets what when we’re one short, and she knows if a girl is lost in the woods and she knows if that lost girl needs us, and after we find her or if she finds us, Melody decides whether or not this girl belongs, and if not, Melody knows what to do about it, and if something worse happens, she knows what to do, and
how
, and Melody decides
when.

Melody decided and now it’s my turn to be up on the hill all by myself, she gave me the Midnight Watch. This is so cool! Me, Ida Mae Howells, hiding on the slope by the parking lot keeping watch, so my sister Scouts can sleep safe.

She trusts me to stay awake and be vigilant, so they can’t sneak up on us while we sleep.

Like, these guys come crunching into the woods in the dead of night acting all heroic, like they’re here to be nice, but we know they all want to Do Things to girls in the woods up here where nobody sees it and nobody can hear. Twice we caught men hunting us for the reward, like they could drag us back down
the mountain in their teeth, back to our boring, stupid old lives. Well, we took care of them.

Sleep safe, girls. Nobody gets past me. I’m watching them people in the bus away up the Last Incline, no problem. Clyde marched them down and locked them all in the bus. They’re asleep, so I can relax.

Wait! What’s that? Did I dream it? did I accidentally fall asleep? Who’s out there anyway?

Ooooh nooooo!

And why am I all weird right now, thinking about all those outsiders,
this close
. We all hung back today when the bus left the Overlook, and when Clyde drove past, up the Last Incline, we were glad. See, in the parking lot, they get out and bop around and sometimes one gets lost. Then Stephanie warns us so low that only we can hear, “Run!” So we pick up and run.

We can’t let them find us. If they find us, it will be bad.

Except this time it isn’t them, it’s only me.

And he’s singing. Somebody is out here singing, I can hear him, it’s for me!

Are you lonely, do you miss it, do you want it
, it’s so weird, and then, in the bushes something sparkles just above my head in and the sneaky, nice-nasty sound comes with, too low for anybody but Ida Mae to hear,
it’s so pretty, would you like it
, and the sparkle hangs closer,
do you want it, see I brought it just for you
and all of a sudden I don’t want to move, I don’t jump, I don’t sound the alarm because I want to listen, I have to see,
if you want it you can have it …
and I should hoot to warn my sister Scouts but instead I just let the song happen until I see him through the leaves, he’s singing and singing, he’s close!

He looks huge in
all that stuff
, and, oh! Miss Tracie, I talked to him, I did! I kept it low, so as not to rouse the others, I whispered, “Oh, you can take off the hat, our rattlers are all curled up sleeping in their holes,” which is a lie, but I had to see what he looked like in the face behind the veil.

“Oh,” he said, “are you in there? Let me see you, come out and look at me, and let me look at you.” If he Tried Something I would of bopped him but he didn’t move, he just waited in what was left of the moonlight, dangling this sparkly thing and singing his long, sweet song thing that made me squirm Down There,
if you want it you can have it, I brought diamonds just for you …

And they’re so shiny and he’s so close that I almost, almost betrayed the spirit of Miss Tracie and Melody and Stephanie and all my other sister Scouts sleeping under my watch. I’m weak! I think:
It’s
OK
, I don’t even have to warn.

I tell myself:
I just want to see him. Then I’ll decide.

I tell myself:
be careful, careful, Ida Mae, there are gangs of big city folks
asleep on the ledge up there, right there, in the bus
, but his song is so sweet, so soft and so all about me and my chain of diamonds that I squirm forward on my elbows like a rattler in heat and at the last second I rear up so he sees me and like he promised, he takes off the veil hat and I’m all, “Oh, crap.”

“You,” he says, in a different voice, he’s so
ugly
, and this is awful. He says it like:
ewwwww
. “You aren’t … ”

And I think:
fine!
so I say, too low to rouse my sister Scouts, “Well neither are you. Go away!” but I keep coming at him because I want the sparkly. I’ll just grab it and let him go.

But he snaps off a branch and starts swinging at me like I’m a monster that he has to kill but it’s
OK
, I have my rock.

I really think I can just bop him and roll him off the edge before my sisters come but he yells “Get away from me” mean enough to scare the whole mountain and I vomit one last warning, “shut up, shut
up!”

But he howls in my face, “Get away from me, you ugly dirtbag.” Then he shouts out the worst thing ever. “You’re too
old
!”

So I smash him with the rock. Then I bash his head and bash it and bash it, I have to wipe that disgusting, hurtful word off his disgusting face. By the time my sister Scouts are wide awake and charging uphill to join, there’s not much left to bash but, oh boy, he screamed so loud that up there on the ledge, lights pop on all over Clyde’s bus and we hear them hammering to get out. Usually we’re such good Scouts that we come and go without anybody knowing, but this time it got loud, and it’s all my fault.

“Ohhhh, Melody, I’m so
sorry.”

Her voice goes hard. “Don’t worry, I heard.”

“Old.” This is awful, it comes out in a sob. I’m so
embarrassed.

Everybody in Troop 13 is mortified and raging, “Old!”

Stephanie looks down at what’s left of the man like he’s a rattler we had to squash. “We all heard.”

“
OK
girls, Scout Council.” Melody points and we squat in a circle around what’s left of what we just did, wondering what to do.

Sisters, worrying. “Tomorrow they’ll find out.”

“They don’t have to.” Melody is the one who decides
whether.

This is so
hard
. I say, “They can’t find out.”

We shudder. “Nobody can.”

“They might.” Even Stephanie is scared.

Melody comes down on that like a hammer, “They won’t find out,” and we all feel better because Melody also decides
when.

Day and night, summer, winter, year after year for a really long time, we have protected our sweet life on the mountainside. Nothing gets between Troop 13 and our freedom, and nothing will.

“
OK
” Melody says, “Council,” Melody says, and we squat in a circle and begin. After Council, she will say
how.

Either we do what we usually do, break camp and fade away to the East Grade and do like it says in the Girl Scout prayer, “Help us to see where we may serve / In some new place in some new way,” praying that nobody looks out the window when the sun comes up and Clyde backs that bus around and comes downhill and that Louie doesn’t care what the vultures are eating when he cranks himself up the dome …

Or we go up to the ledge and do something else about it tonight.

Clyde never unlocks the bus until the sun comes up. There are enough of us to get it rolling, all it takes is one little push.

—Asimov’s
SF
, 2013

The Wait