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They were dressed in blindingly colorful, flowing affairs, and though everyone sang a song of jubilation, unfettered and altogether unhinged, Amara couldn’t help but be disturbed by the sharp divide between what the day was and what it looked like.
She and Quint arrived well ahead of schedule to scope out the area and ensure that Frederik hadn’t planned or planted anything near the agreed-upon meeting place. Amara sat at the edge of the cliff, staring down at the ever-growing crowd below. Before long, most of the people who’d gathered on the shore began migrating toward the large fire that had been built there below the cliff.
The wet driftwood that was tossed onto the burning pile created a massive column of bitter, acrid smoke which was being driven toward Amara by gusts coming in off the ocean. Amara moved back and away from the cliff. It seemed to be some sort of signal, because the migration only quickened from there.
As the meeting time neared, the songs, chants, and screams of glee from below didn’t wane in the slightest, and only seemed to grow greater. Several of the large skulls that had been paraded through the streets earlier found their way to the gathering, and kept watch over the revelers from their massive poles propped around the central fire.
Amara sat on one of the waist-high railings that lined the small collection of parking spots on both sides. On the near side, it was bordered by a thicket of spindly trees and rangy weeds, a more substantial grove shadowing the far side from the bright glow of the moon overhead.
Judging by the condition of the place, it made sense that Frederik would want to meet there — the metal was long since rusted over, the three-spot parking lot overgrown with weeds and crisscrossed with grass breaking out through the deep fissures in the concrete. Widely spaced, low-level streetlights circled the lot, casting everything in a weak, yellow hue.
“Something feels wrong about all this, Quint. Maybe it’s …” Amara motioned out toward the city and the sea. “… you know. It’s some kind of bad omen. We’re negotiating for my son, possibly my son’s life, on the Day of the Dead. Frederik always did have a sick sense of humor. He said nothing was sacred, nothing was off limits. I really know how to pick them.”
Quint paced slowly behind the rail, back and forth, back and forth. “I know what you mean. I had a string of bad girlfriends myself, but nothing like that. My problems were a lot more predictable. A few women who were interested in social status and the rest mostly interested in my money. No one cared about me as a person. Who I was. All those interviews, all those specials done about me, the articles and books, they were about someone else, certainly not me, no matter what the titles said.”
“I think it’s called Impostor Syndrome,” he continued, sitting beside Amara on the rail. “I still feel it. I got rich quick, probably quicker than I should have, to be honest. I made some stupid decisions early on, all of which were well-documented in the tabloids. I’m lucky it was before celebrity culture became so huge on the internet. Er — random celebrities. People who’re merely famous for being rich. Bands and movie stars don’t count. That’s a whole different culture, trust me.”
“For what it’s worth,” Amara said, “I think you’re famous for a lot more than having money, especially now with the work you’ve been doing for others. As for me, a lot of the time, I still feel like the optimistic little girl who wanted to save the people my grandma talked about getting to know. My great-grandmother was Nigerian, and I always kind of mourned the loss of that culture. Getting out there and meeting them was an eye-opening experience. Some of the weird little things my family does I thought were normal until I grew up and realized that no one else was half-practicing folk magic.”
“Folk magic?”
“I’ll explain another time.” A fond smile crossed her face as she rocked slowly. “And, of course, the food. That’s where I learned about cassava, you know. I loved it, but it was a very occasional treat. Even with all the preparation in the world, I guess you can never be certain anything is safe enough for your baby girl, or your grandbaby in this case, even if you’ve prepared it yourself. They were right to be cautious. I found out about that a lot later when I started getting into agriculture. It was my first science project. I don’t even remember what I tried to grow. A carrot maybe? It was a total disaster. I got a little participation ribbon and all, but I didn’t let it discourage me. Had a little plot out in the back of the house. Momma grows tomatoes there now. Some of the best you can imagine.”
Amara stared at the ground in front of her.
“I’ll have to check it out when we get home. If I’m
going to be part of your life in any substantial way, I should probably get to know the family, right?”
“You won’t have any problem winning Momma over,” Amara said. “This may sound cliche, but my momma is everything I ever wanted to be. She’s my hero. She worked so hard and did so much for me, despite having more than enough of her own problems to deal with.”
Amara paused for a long moment before looking over at Quint. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you talk about your family, Quint. Why is that? I wouldn’t usually ask, and to be honest I’ve been a little nervous to, but while we’re distracting ourselves by talking about our pasts …”
Quint shook his head slowly. “I didn’t mean to hold out. It’s just never come up. I don’t have any aversion to telling you anything about me or my life. My family was unremarkable. Typical WASP types. Bury the emotions, feign piousness while harboring deep resentment for the Robinsons or whoever they were peeved at for having a bigger backyard barbecue or whatever was the item to be envied. Mostly, it was a negative place. My mother and father didn’t get along. Maybe they loved each other, but if so, they didn’t show it around me. For all I know, they may have only stayed together for the convenience that marriage afforded them. Maybe I’m off-base, but it seemed that my existence was secondary to their needs.”
Amara stared up at him, her brow hiked high. “I had no idea you were from a suburban family. Maybe a little richer, right?”
“My old man made some lucky guesses in early tech stocks and set us up pretty comfortably. He loaned me the capital I needed to get my first company started, actually. That was after my ‘I’m leaving home and living on friends’ couches for a couple years’ rebellion. When I was done with that, he was more than happy to set me up in what he considered a legitimate enterprise.”
Amara couldn’t hide her smile. “That’s so funny. Thinking about you with long hair and a scraggly beard, bumming rides and eating cheap fast food, living from couch to couch. Though if you wanted to get away from your raising, that’s certainly the way to do it. You did everything short of becoming a train-hopping hobo, didn’t you?”
He returned her smile. “Actually, I considered it. When I was a lot younger, anyway. I used to dream about running away from home a lot. Even drew up some plans. I’m sure I’ve got them around somewhere, but they always involved me carrying a stick over my shoulder with everything I owned wrapped up in a big, red handkerchief dangling from the end. It was all the rage in the cartoons.”
“I think we all had that phase. As much as I loved Momma and as much as she looked out for me, I thought I knew better sometimes. I was a good kid growing up, but we had our spats — mostly over my friends. Some of them weren’t so great. While I kinda wish I’d listened to her at the time, those harsh experiences helped me to figure out what was important to me. In a small way, it made me aware of how petty and immaterial my problems were when put up against the kind of adversity people struggle against every day in places like Nigeria, Ethiopia, Chad.”
“So that’s how you ended up devoting your life to helping others?” Quint asked.
“No one should ever have to go hungry. I can’t pretend, though, that I went to Nigeria because they were the most needy people — that was at least partly selfish, for the whole heritage thing. But being there put the whole region in perspective and drove home the reality of the kind of lives these people live. I can’t imagine trying to subsist off what I could grow in my little garden out behind the house, and yet, that’s what a lot of them have to resort to every time there’s a drought, a famine, any kind of disaster or war. The cassava is their safety net, and it’s failing them.”
Quint put an arm around her waist, pulling her closer. “Did you hear anything on the news about what I was up to before the plane went down?”
When Amara shook her head, he continued. “I was in Turkmenistan trying to get a food safety and sanitation project off the ground. They don’t have the resources for adequate, modern plumbing and composting facilities. It’s not viable. I was out there hoping to change that. When I got the call from you, I handed the work down to the vice-chair of the committee I put together to generate ideas for the region.”
“I’m impressed.”
“It took a little while, Amara, but that speech you gave at the convention finally sunk in. It’s not charity, it’s duty, and it’s for the good of us all.”
Amara sighed softly as she leaned in against Quint, staring up at the stars. “We’ve never sat down and talked like this. It’s nice, Quint.”
