Interview With the Mockingjay -- Chapter 7A

In which our hero describes to his photographer how he met his lost love

That night, Archer and I have to share a compartment with upper and lower berths as our train treks its way across the continent. I take the upper bunk, Archer the lower one, and I try to fall asleep.

And again, I’m having the nightmares.

This time, it’s one of the Black Devils’ assaults on a gap in what was once called the Rocky Mountains. The rebels needed to control a mountain pass. In real life, we climbed the mountain by night and fell on the pass from the sides, with complete surprise and great success, killing or capturing the defending Peacekeepers, most of whom were fast asleep in their sleeping bags. They didn’t even bother to set up electronic sensors and alarms. Gus Lewis always disdained the Peacekeepers as enemies, and he was right.

In the dream, the Peacekeepers are fully alert and waiting for us, and they charge into our attack, screaming like banshees. They attack with huge knives instead of automatic weapons, and tear bloody holes in me and my buddies. I’m screaming back at them when I feel the knife go into my face…

…And Archer is up out of his lower berth, smacking me in the face to wake me up. “Jesus Christ, dude!” he yells. “What the hell!”

I leap up. “What…what happened?”

“That’s what I want to know!” Archer shouts. “You were screaming your head off! Are you all right?”

I climb out of bed and jump to the floor. “I’m okay. I just had a nightmare.”

“No shit, pal. You started thrashing around, and then you started screaming.”

There is a knock at the door. “Who is it?” Archer yells.

“Conductor. I heard shouting in there. Are you all right?”

I pull on my jeans and go to the door, opening it slightly. “I’m sorry. I’m all right. Just had a nightmare.”

The conductor, who looks red-eyed himself, nods. “Okay. Take it easy.” He leaves. I shut the door.

Archer is standing there in his boxer shorts and tank top. “What time is it?” I ask.

“Four o’clock in the morning. And I want to go back to sleep.”

“So do I,” I mutter, as I climb back into my berth, shedding my jeans.

Archer plunges into his bed. “I don’t know what kind of accommodations they have for us in District 12, but we’re not sharing the same room,” he growls. “And who the fuck is Meredith?”

I lean over the bed. “What?” I ask.

“You kept calling out the name, ‘Meredith, Meredith,’ over and over again. I thought we were going to interview Katniss Everdeen.”

Goddammit, I think. “I’ll tell you in the morning,” I say.

Archer jumps out of his bed and glares right into my face. “You better, pal,” he says. “I don’t need to be scared out of my fucking wits every night by your goddamn nightmares.”

“I’ll tell you,” I say. “Over breakfast. We don’t get in to District 12 until around noon, anyway.” I roll over to face the wall. I just want to get back to sleep.

“Yeah, right.” Archer climbs back into his bed.

Then he pops up again, facing me. “Wait a second, I remember now. You and Kae Lyn mentioned her when we were reviewing the tapes yesterday. Just for a moment. She – she’s the girl in the picture on your desk, right?”

I roll back and face Archer. His face is inches from mine. “Yes, she’s the girl in the picture.”

“I heard stories about this from the other photographers. That you have this wild obsession with some chick you knew in the war.” He points his finger at me. “That it makes you crazy in some way.”

I sit up in bed, feeling exposed and dizzy.

“You’re going to tell me the whole fucking story, pal,” Archer snarls.

“Well, I don’t think it’s any of your goddamn business, pal,” I snarl back.

“Wrong fucking answer,” Archer yells. “If I have to put up with you screaming every night, I have a right to know why.” His voice drops an octave. “Does anybody else know the full story? At the paper, that is?”

“Just Kae Lyn.”

“I see. Normally, you trust your photographer. But I guess that only applies to Kae Lyn.”

“No, shithead, it’s because she was there for all of it!” I yell back. “The war, Meredith, the last seven months with the paper! She’s more than my photographer, she’s one of my closest friends!”

Archer looks stunned. “What the fuck is this, some kind of three-way?”

“No! Kae Lyn and I were never lovers! Goddammit, I’ll tell you in the morning!”

The train blasts out a whistle in answer.

Archer shakes his head. “You know, I used to think that the people I went with on Hunger Games arena tours were totally fucked up. They got crazy plastic surgery to make themselves look like wild animals, they wore clothing out of a freak show, they wasted food, they re-enacted fights from the Hunger Games at age 50, and came on to me at age 60. But you are more fucked up than all those guys put together.”

“What the hell do you know about it,” I yell back. “You’re 19 years old. You ever been in love?”

“Yeah, plenty of times!”

“No, I mean real, deep, life-setting love! Did you ever meet your soul mate? The woman you wanted to spend the rest of your life with? And then have her disappear before you could have her? To fucking lose her and not know if she’s alive or dead?”

Archer bites his lips. His adam’s-apple bobs.

“I didn’t think so,” I snarl. “You’ve just had a lot of one-night stands. I’ll bet you couldn’t wait to get rid of them in the morning.”

We stare at each other in fury for a long moment. Finally Archer breaks the spell. “You tell me this story in the morning,” he says, pointing at me.

“You’ll get it. Just make sure you don’t tell the whole goddamn world about it.”

“I’m a journalist, too, pal. I protect my sources. Hey, and just because I’m 19, doesn’t make me a moron. Or insensitive.” He hops down back to his bed. I roll back over, and turn out the light.

Now we have something interesting to talk about for the remaining few hours, I think.

***

Regular passenger train service from one part of Panem to another is something new. Before the war, the only people who traveled from the Capitol to the Districts were government officials, business agents, Peacekeepers, Hunger Games participants, and the Capitol’s tame journalists. The officials, Hunger Games people, and journalists traveled in luxury trains, packed with expensive foodstuffs.

In the struggle to rebuild a war-torn nation, the new rail service is a work-in-progress, like everything else. Trains spend long times on sidings, being repaired, or waiting for other, more important trains, loaded with supplies, to move past. Passenger cars are crowded. Upper and lower berths are the rule. But breakfast, at least, is good. Today, it consists of a bowl of cold cereal, scrambled eggs, and corned beef hash.

I wake up an hour after Archer, and arrive in the packed dining car to find him already picking at his eggs.

“Try them,” he says. “They’re good.”

The waitress comes hustling over. “The same for me,” I say.

“There’s only one breakfast,” the waitress answers as she makes a note on her pad and shuffles off.

“Well, that makes life simple,” I say. “Listen, I’m sorry about last night. I have these nightmares from the war…”

Archer cuts me off. “If we’re going to be together for the next couple of weeks, or months, we’re going to have to get along. And if you scream and yell in your sleep every night, we’re going to have problems. Personally, it doesn’t matter to me if you like three-ways. I’ve done them myself. But I get really pissed when my reporter treats me like I can’t be trusted, and that I’m some kind of shitty…what’s the word? Appendage.”

“I’m sorry,” I say again. “I have a lot of nightmares because of the war. You had to have been in it, to really understand it.”

Archer wipes his lips with his napkin. “Try me. I may be young, but I’m not stupid.”

“I don’t think you’d really understand it…you really have to have been in it.”

He gives me a hard look. “Okay. But you were screaming about Meredith. Now a love affair is a little different from the war.” He starts cutting up his corned beef hash, then stops, and points his fork at me. “So I’m going to start over, from the beginning. This girl is something you’re obsessed with. Like that book they made us read in school, about the white whale.”

“Moby Dick,” I say.

“I knew it had a dick in it,” Archer says, breaking into his first smile of the day. “So, is she the girl in the picture on your desk?”

“She’s the girl…in the picture…on my desk,” I say, spacing my words slowly and carefully. “Her name is Meredith Jackson. She’s from District 11.”

“You and her were in the war together?”

My orange juice arrives, and I sip from it. “Yes, and there’s more.”

“She was your girlfriend?”

I nod my head. “She was.”

“I thought Kae Lyn was your girlfriend.”

“Kae Lyn is my photographer and my best friend,” I say. “But we’ve never been lovers.”

“And obviously you’re still not…with Meredith?” Archer looks straight into my eyes. “You said you don’t know if she’s alive or dead.”

“I haven’t seen her in more than a year. I think she was killed in the war.”

“You think?” Archer’s eyebrows go up. “I thought you had no idea.”

“Her whole unit was wiped out in an ambush a week after that picture was taken,” I say. “Nobody found her alive or dead. A lot of the bodies were burned beyond recognition.”

Archer turns a little pale. “Shit,” he says. “That’s fucked up. So you really don’t know if she’s dead or alive.”

“I have no idea what happened to her,” I say, swirling my juice. “Nobody seems to know. A lot of people got lost in the war, and with the upheaval in the districts that followed.”

“Did you ask her people in District 11?”

“I made some inquiries. Nobody knew what happened to her. District 11 took a beating in the war. And efficient communications and record-keeping are still a mess.”

Archer chomps down on his eggs. “So you don’t have any closure or shit like that.”

“No. The last time I saw her, she was…”

Archer cuts me off. “No, I want to hear this from the beginning. Tell me about the first time you saw her.”

That’s a more pleasant story.

***

It is the second day that the rebel army’s officers’ training camp is open, in District 7, which at one time was supposedly northwest Montana and Canada. The mountains are perfect places for light infantry officers to train.

District 7 produces Panem’s lumber, and the terrain consists of mountains, coniferous forests, and lakes. It is more beautiful than my home District 2, I have to admit.

The rebels have taken over the District 7 Peacekeepers’ barracks, which is equipped with classrooms, gyms, lecture halls, a firing range, an obstacle course, and even a swimming pool.

Most of the rebel officer trainees have not arrived yet, and neither have the trainers from District 13, so the training program has not commenced. The rebel propaganda folks have decided that Kae Lyn and I, who have been working together for three weeks in their employ, should get officers’ training before being embedded in the field. The theory is that we are brighter than the average rebel soldier, so we should be able to serve as junior officers in any unit we’re assigned to. And we should have some understanding of tactics and leadership, so we know what’s going on. We are to be soldiers first, combat correspondents second.

It is shortly after dawn on what will turn out to be a blisteringly hot June day, when I first meet Meredith.

As usual, I wake up at dawn to do my running, and I leave the barracks to do just that, my music player and music chip in hand. I ask the guard at the front desk if there’s anywhere to jog, and she points me toward the three-mile jogging trail.

At the start of the trail, I find a woman with mocha-colored skin, wavy natural black hair, and long, slender, legs and arms, wearing a pair of blue running shorts and a white tank top, covering ripe apple-sized breasts, stretching those legs, getting ready for her run. She is seated on the ground, leaning forward, touching her toes.

I can’t help it. I stare at the legs and arms…long, slender, sensuous. Her mocha-colored skin contrasts brilliantly with the white tank top.

She realizes I’m staring at her, and turns her face toward me, revealing deep, soulful eyes, and thick red lips. She has not an inch of make-up on, so right away I know she’s not from the Capitol.

But she is positively the most beautiful woman I have ever seen in my life.

And I’m still staring at her like a terrified schoolboy, not a 29-year-old newspaper editor.

“Are you going to stand there and stare,” she asks, flashing a brilliant smile, with a lilting voice.

She rises to her feet, and faces me, tossing back her hair, with her right hand, showing an armpit. Her firm, ripe breasts snub tightly against her white tank top, and around her neck she wears a necklace made of grass. A carved wooden flower hangs from it, pointed directly down at her cleavage.

And I’m still standing there staring at her.

And she’s staring at me, with an impish grin.

I realize she’s waiting for me to make a move, introduce myself, stand on my head, just do something.

So I fall back on the basics.

“Hi,” I say, sticking out my right hand. “My name’s Charlie Allbright. I’m from District 2.”

She glides her hand into mine. “Meredith Jackson. From District 11.”

“Farm girl,” I say, trying to relieve my tension with humor.

Meredith tosses her hair again, and tugs at her necklace. “Not exactly. I was the assistant business administrator of my District before I joined the rebellion. And with your muscles, shouldn’t you be a Career Tribute?”

I smile and laugh. “In my District, we had more than enough Tribute wanna-bes. No, I was a newspaper editor before I joined up. Now I’m what they call a ‘combat correspondent.’ My photographer and I are here to get trained so that we can cover the war and lead troops in it, too.”

Meredith leans her head toward me. She reaches into her shorts’ pocket, pulls out a rubber band, and ties up her hair into a ponytail, again baring her shaven armpits. Her arms and legs move sensuously. “I’m impressed. So you’re going to make us all famous? Put us on TV?”

“I’m in the print side,” I say. “But I’ll make you famous.”

“All right,” Meredith says, cheerily. “So how long have you been here?”

“This is my second day…first time I’ve gone running. Have you been on this route before?”

“I’ve been here three days, and I’ve taken the course each day.”

“Good, you can show me the route.”

“What do you have on there,” she says, pointing at my music player.

“Springsteen, Sinatra, Carly Simon…it’s kind of a mix.”

Meredith’s face is puzzled. “Never heard of them.”

“Well, I’ll introduce you,” I say.

“All right,” she says. She turns to start running. “Are you coming? I don’t like running alone.”

I reach down to my sneaker. There are pebbles in it, and I take the shoe off to remove the pebbles. “Hang on a moment,” I say.

“I’ll wait for you,” Meredith says.

That sets off a song memory. I look up at her, and say, “The next line is, ‘If I should fall behind, wait for me.’”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s on my music player,” I say. “It’s a Bruce Springsteen song.” I sing the line. “‘I’ll wait for you. If I should fall behind, wait for me.’”

She ponders that for a moment. “All right,” she says. “I like that.”

We set off into the dark forest. Mist is rising up from the ground as our sneakers hit the shingle track, which winds past pine trees. Meredith puts on a good pace. I can keep up with her, but I can’t talk. We charge past thick undergrowth. The only sound is the crash of our feet on the route and the answering whistles of birds.

At two-and-a-half miles, a small lake appears on our left, and Meredith pulls up to stop. She points at the lake. A log sits overlooking it. On the lake, swans, ducks, and geese parade about. In the distance stand white-capped mountains. “I like to stop here for a few minutes,” she says. “It’s so peaceful and quiet.” She slaps her hands on her hips, lets out a four-note whistle, and the mockingjays in the trees pick it up and answer it.

“I’ve heard that whistle before,” I say. “On television.”

“You heard it during the 74^th Hunger Games,” Meredith says. “My little cousin Rue whistled it. Then Katniss Everdeen repeated it when Rue was dying.”

“And that’s why you joined the rebellion,” I say.

Meredith turns away from the geese and right at me, hands still on hips, her eyes wide. “You’re very sharp,” she says.

“I’m a journalist,” I say. “I have to be able to figure things out.” I pause. “Was that the sole reason?”

“One of them. I had several reasons. I’m into multiple causes for everything. But yes, Rue getting reaped into that arena and getting butchered so that some lazy, rich people could enjoy it was a big one. That was the first cause, not the immediate stressor.”

“There were others?”

“Are you writing a story about me?” Meredith asks, with a mocking smile.

“Actually, I’m genuinely interested,” I say. “The story might come later.”

“Really,” she says, stepping toward me. “Interested in what?”

“Interested in you,” I say, smiling slightly.

She playfully taps my arm. “You have your swirl on?” she asks.

“Actually, I’ve only dated black girls. Ever since I was a kid,” I answer.

She smiles again, revealing her white teeth. “So you were indeed checking me out back there,” she says.

I redden.

“Only dated sisters? And you’re from District 2, the land of the blonde giants? And you’ve lived to tell the tale. This I’d like to hear.”

I feel self-conscious, unsure what to do. Meredith smacks me playfully on the arm. “Come on, let’s go.” She jogs off down the trail, and I chase after her, and keep up with her to the end of the trail.

At the end of the route, we stretch again. Meredith’s tank top is damp from sweat and exertion and clings hungrily to her breasts. I try to keep my eyes locked on her brown eyes. I do not want her to think I’m checking her out.

“We must do this again,” I say.

“I’m not planning to go anywhere…at least until training’s complete,” Meredith says. “I have to learn to play my role in this war.” She bends over to touch her toes. I can’t help it. I have to look. Her rump is pert and firm.

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players, they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages,” I say, trying to find something to think about besides Meredith’s body.

She flies back up and stares at me, hair tossing. “Shakespeare. As You Like It,” she gasps. “You’re the first person I’ve met besides my high school teacher who knew Shakespeare.”

“You know Shakespeare?”

“I have a couple of volumes of him in my barracks room,” Meredith says. “I have his sonnets.”

I must look blank. Meredith laughs. “His poems. His love poems.”

“Shakespeare wrote love poems?” I blurt out. “I didn’t know that.”

“You’re the newspaperman and you don’t know about Shakespeare’s poems?”

“I know about a few of his plays,” I say, stunned. “And some of his quotes. How did you…when did he…write sonnets?”

Meredith smiles again. I am beginning to lose myself in that smile. She takes out her hair ribbon and tosses her hair out again, and puts her hands on her hips, authoritatively. “Yes, he wrote love poems. About a fair man and a dark woman. If you’re nice to me, I’ll let you read them.”

“And what do you want in return?”

She taps my music player. “I want to know what you’ve got going on there. Springsteen and Sinatra. Whoever they are.”

“You didn’t have music in District 11?”

Her face falls, and her voice turns chilly. She folds her arms over her chest. “We have starvation and overwork in District 11. No music players and chips. But we have music. Sometimes, music is all we have.”

My lips purse. This could go bad really quickly. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I often forget that District 2 enjoys a privileged status.” I kick at the ground and look down, sheepish. “Look, I don’t know much about District 11. Or any of the other districts, really. The only thing I see is the…”

“I know, I know, the Hunger Games. The reapings. The interviews with the Tributes. The tours.”

I look back into her eyes. She’s a little annoyed. This is a feature in the girls I have dated. They are quick to anger. But then, even in the favored District 2, there’s lots to be angry about. Maybe I can fix this. “So tell a guy who has absolutely no knowledge of District 11 what kind of music you have. In District 11.”

“We have gospel music and spirituals, and jazz. We sing while we work in the fields and orchards, and we dance at night under the trees, when we’re not working,” Meredith says, sounding a little amused by my ignorance. “But no music chips to put them on.”

“Maybe you can teach me some gospel songs,” I say. “I’m not much of a singer, though. I have other qualities, though.”

“Maybe that can happen,” she says, offering a smile..

“What are you doing the rest of the day?” I hear myself asking impulsively.

“I was going to take a shower, and eat some breakfast. After that, I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

“I’d like to see the Shakespeare volumes,” I say.

“Why don’t we meet up for breakfast and then you can come up to my room?” Meredith says.

***

“Holy shit,” Archer says. “All you did was run three miles with her and she invited you up to her room? Damn, she was easy!”

The train is rattling along, and our breakfast nearly done.

“It wasn’t like that,” I say. “We could come and go to other trainees’ rooms at any time, except after ‘lights out.’ It was to build up a sense of unity and teamwork. We could study together or just socialize.”

“Yeah, but she invited you right up?”

“Again, it wasn’t what you’re thinking. All the trainees had to keep their doors open except after ‘lights out,’ and there were frequent room inspections,” I say. “Even the most overheated couple couldn’t have had a ‘quickie’ if they wanted to.”

“Glad I wasn’t an officer,” Archer says. “So what was to stop a couple from going off in the bushes somewhere and getting it on?”

“If a male trainee kissed a female trainee or vice versa, the offender would have been drummed out. Or both,” I say. “Gus Lewis was in charge of the training, and he had no tolerance for trainee sex. He didn’t even like trainee romances. Just to make sure, nobody was issued any kind of birth control. He wanted us to be afraid of getting a girl pregnant.”

“I guess you had no pregnancies.”

“None. Gus wanted camaraderie, not kisses.”

“What could be better camaraderie than being in love,” Archer says. “I’d fight for my woman a lot harder.”

“You don’t understand the war,” I say again. “This wasn’t a Hunger Game, where the only thing at stake is the lives of the contestants. Gus Lewis told us at the very start, if we didn’t give the training everything we had, we could lose the war. The tyranny would go on forever. Millions of innocent people would die. Most of the surviving rebels would get turned into Avoxes…and those would be the lucky ones. You…you have to understand just how desperate and critical the war was…how much was at stake. Gus didn’t want to lose the war because a girl got knocked up. Everything was on the line, and he wanted everyone focused on fighting the war.”

“Maybe you should be telling me about that as well.”

I shake my head. “I have enough problems with the nightmares.”

“All right, tell me about Meredith.”

The train races under a bridge, and the lights flash out for a moment. When they come back on, I am back with Meredith at the running course.

***

“Sure. I’ll bring my music, too,” I say.

“All right,” Meredith says, smiling.

“And again, I’m sorry about my ignorance...look, I grew up in District 2, and my father was a Peacekeeper, so we had a few luxuries…but, that doesn’t mean we didn’t have tough times, either. I saw people get whipped for stealing food or just mouthing off about how bad things were. Stonecutters’ kids. Miners’ kids. Maybe you can tell me how hard it was.”

Meredith looks away for a moment, then right back at me. She drops her arms, and moves toward me, and sighs. “Actually, in my immediate family, it wasn’t that bad. I even had a car.”

“You can drive?” I blurt out. “How did you get a car?”

She taps me on the chest. “It was assigned to me, as assistant business administrator. So I could drive around the District to find out what was going on.”

“Well, then, you’re already one up on me,” I say. “I’ve never even been in a car. See? District 2 doesn’t really conquer the world. Just the Hunger Games.”

Meredith laughs.

“I’ve been looking for you,” shouts another female voice, aimed at me. I turn around, and Kae Lyn, wearing a robe over her one-piece swimsuit, sandals flapping, comes sauntering up. Her hair is done in a weave, straightening it, and she is soaked. Kae Lyn hates running. She has spent her early morning doing a few laps in the barracks pool.

“Who’s this?” Meredith asks, her voice raising in pitch.

Is she getting jealous? After one trip around the jogging course? Interesting, I think.

Kae Lyn is smaller than Meredith, somewhat darker, and a little more muscled. They stare at each other. Kae Lyn looks irritated. Meredith looks baffled.

Meredith points at us. “Are you two…” Her voice trails off.

“Meredith, I’d like you to meet my photographer. Kae Lyn Harrington. From District 3,” I say, extending my left hand towards Kae Lyn. “And no, we’re not involved.”

“I thought we were going to breakfast,” Kae Lyn says.

“And we are,” I say. “And Meredith is joining us…”

And Meredith steps forward and touches Kae Lyn’s hair, and says enthusiastically, “And I love how you did your weave! I want you to tell me how you did it!”

Kae Lyn is distracted. “I have a friend back in District 3 who did this for me before I joined up,” she says. “It’s not like what a Capitol stylist would do, but…”

“But I love it!” Meredith says. “Honestly! We don’t have any hair styling in District 11!”

“Well, I think your hair is better,” Kae Lyn says, “It’s got a more natural look.”

“Oh, thank you!” Meredith gushes. She takes Kae Lyn’s hands. “I’m sorry I thought, well...Charlie, you should have told me.” Meredith looks at me.

“I told Meredith I like the sisters,” I say to Kae Lyn. “I didn’t mention that you were one.”

“So you two seem to have hit it off right away,” Kae Lyn says coolly.

Now it’s Meredith’s turn to suffer a red face.

“I love being right all the time,” Kae Lyn says, breaking into a smile.

“Why don’t we all get cleaned up and regroup over breakfast,” I say.

“All right,” Meredith says, hands on hips. She swivels on her hips, and slowly walks away, back toward the barracks, her hips lightly twitching. She throws me a smile as she retreats.

“You’re hot for her,” Kae Lyn says.

I can’t lie to Kae Lyn. We’ve only been together for three weeks, but she’s figured me out. She can see the world through her camera lens. “Yeah,” I say. “She’s pretty sharp, too. And she likes Shakespeare.”

“God, I love being right all the time,” Kae Lyn repeats, shaking her head. Then she looks hard at me. “Someone besides you knows Shakespeare? This alone I have to see.”

I watch Meredith disappear into the barracks. For a moment, I imagine the running shorts sliding down her long, shapely legs, and wonder what’s underneath.

“Do you think she was sincere when she said she liked my weave?” Kae Lyn asks. “Or do you think she was trying to relieve the tension?”

“Both,” I say. “She’s into multiple causes.”

Kae Lyn folds her arms together. “Well, I’ll tell you this…she recovered well.”

“Did she sound sincere?” I ask.

“She sounded like she was trying,” Kae Lyn says. “But if you’re wondering about the important subject, yes, I think she’s into you.” She pauses. “What was her body language like when you met her?”

“She kept tugging on her hair and raising her arms to show me her armpits,” I say. “She leaned toward me. And she tapped my arm.”

“Very observant,” Kae Lyn says.

“I’m a good reporter,” I say. “What does that mean?”

“She’s definitely into you,” Kae Lyn says. “Innocent touches means that she likes you. Tossing her hair and showing her armpits is to attract your attention.”

“She got mine.”

Kae Lyn smacks me on the rump. “Then go get her, Tiger. I think the odds are definitely in your favor. God, I love being right all the time.” She heads back to the barracks to get changed, then turns toward me. “And what is it with you and the sisters?” she asks.

***

“What is it with you and the sisters,” Archer asks.

“I told you about Helen Goosby yesterday,” I say.

“Yeah. What happened with that,” Archer says.

“We went out for a while, and had some good times, and…”

“And it didn’t last,” Archer says. “Your family objected?”

“Her family objected,” I say. “My parents didn’t care. My mother was starting to get the breast cancer that killed her. They had more important things to think about than who I was dating. Do you really have to know all this shit?”

“Sorry. I’m just Ace being Ace,” Archer says. “And don’t forget, I’m a journalist, too. I want to know the story.”

I clang my fork and knife together, having cleaned my plate.

“So what happened with Meredith,” Archer asks, as we rise from the dining car to return to more comfortable seats in the passenger car.

“We went to breakfast, the three of us, and were joined by a couple more new trainees.”

“How was she with Kae Lyn?” Archer asks.

“They were nervous with each other,” I say. “But Meredith was really interested in Kae Lyn’s weave, so they talked about that for awhile, and then about music. Turned out they knew some of the same songs, which really amazed me, when you consider how split the Districts are.”

“So then what happened?”

“I went up to Meredith’s room, and she introduced me to Shakespeare’s sonnets, which I had never read before.”

***