Child Z

CHAPTER 6 - MAI

Mai awoke on Elsie's bedroom floor with an immense feeling of satisfaction. The night before, when CNN started reporting Alvarado's unexpected lead, then later, when they finally declared her the winner, Mai and her friends watching on Elsie's laptop couldn't believe their eyes. Reality sank in when Governor Meyerson gave a bewildered late-night concession speech, and when the President of the United States voiced her congratulations to Alvarado. It was an upset no one had seen coming and an electoral result Simia had spent millions hoping to prevent.

So much had happened in the lead-up to Election Day. Alvarado had come to speak at CLM before the First Emanation video went viral, and CLM volunteers mobilized like revolutionary minutemen to phone bank and get out the vote. Mai, Elsie, TJ, and Blaze had knocked on doors, passed out flyers and directions to polling places, and implored people to vote. Between all the organizing and the release of the video, the stars aligned to make Alvarado victorious.

Mai had spent the night in a sleeping bag next to Blaze on Elsie's bedroom floor. Her parents had agreed to let her stay over at Elsie's and skip school today. Mai sat up and rubbed her eyes, still excited from the night before. Elsie and TJ were curled up together in bed, breathing against each other peacefully.

Mai looked at Blaze, his tousled hair poking out of his sleeping bag. His pale face glowed with late morning light. She nudged him gently, whispered his name. His eyelids parted and the influx of light made him squint. He looked annoyed to have been woken up, but when he realized it was Mai, he smiled.

They'd slept in their clothes, and for Mai, in her makeup too. She went to the bathroom and washed her face. She looked in the mirror and saw someone older and more mature looking back at her.

When she reentered the bedroom, Elsie and TJ were awake. They were spooning and giggling in bed—an irksome sight.

"I'd say get a room but I guess you're already in it," Mai said.

Elsie smiled. TJ didn't.

They went downstairs to the kitchen and Blaze made scrambled eggs. When they sat at the table, Mai caught TJ eying her suspiciously—or maybe not suspiciously. She didn't know. Whatever the look, it wasn't friendly. It was weird seeing TJ without lipstick on. Her natural morning face looked naked, though Mai had to admit even the girl's morning face was beautiful.

Rachel's baby girl, Hayley, crawled excitedly into the kitchen across the linoleum toward the table. Rachel followed, much less excited. With purple bags beneath her eyes, she looked sleep-deprived, defeated, and more exhausted than Mai remembered.

When Hayley tried to pull herself up on a chair, Rachel bent down and scooped the girl up. "Hope you're all happy," she scoffed. "You got what you wanted."

Blaze stopped chewing and froze awkwardly. TJ, habituated to Rachel's venom, rolled her eyes and kept eating.

Elsie looked at her cousin like she was ready to do battle. "Meyerson was Simia's lackey," she said. "You can't deny that. Alvarado's not perfect but it's a move in the right direction. Things will be different now. You'll see!"

Rachel pulled her baby close and kissed the top of her head protectively. "Alvarado's dangerous. The woman's a demagogue, a rabble-rouser, a bigot, an extremist—"

They waited for Rachel to continue listing every disparaging term she could think of, but she seemed to have run out of ideas. She stood red-faced in the kitchen doorway, apparently realizing nothing she could say would have any effect, then stormed out of the room with baby Hayley squawking in her arms.

Mai was overjoyed about Alvarado's victory, yet Rachel was terrified. How could the same person inspire such polar opposite emotions? It made Mai wonder if she was missing something blatantly obvious.