Korê in New York

What happens when a kid refuses to leave the past behind? What happens when the past won't go away? Read on and don't worry about the emotional damage.

1. Guests and Paid Employees

   I overslept Wednesday morning so I had breakfast with the Sidlows. I drank a pot of fancy Oolong tea and realized I hadn’t even been swimming. I got to swim at the Teen Pavillion and then lay out in the sun reading smearing myself with sunscreen. Some time late last nights, the mosquitos had feasted on my arms leaving huge, red welts that made me feel defiled.

   There was no sign of Mitchell, and he was not around at lunch either. I sat in the food court eating stromboli which stuck in my throat. “Mitchell went home,” Haley did the explaining. “He was a guest here, and his family checked out early this morning. You’ll be going home Friday morning. It’s the same thing.”

   I hoped Mitchell was all right. He was my responsiblity. I wanted to email him.

   “How’s your mother, Kore?” asked Dylan.

   “It’s my stepmother and she resented me waking her up.”

   “Really?” asked Amanda.

   “Yes, both my sister and stepsister were in the apartment safe and sound. No kidnapping. Please, I don’t need any practical jokes.”

   “RoAnn Testa is one tough bitch,” commented Dylan.

   Amanda gave the run down for the afternoon. I stayed in with her to make puppets out of felt and popsicle sticks. It was a little kids’ project but it was amusing. Melody also made puppets. She said Grace and Emma had also gone back home and that Klarissa was with her mentors who had “finally listened.”

   “You know your little sister really did try to run away,” Melody added.

   “Which one, Minerva or Ivanna?” I asked. I was getting obscenely sick of this joke which was a stale as a week-old loaf of bread.

   “Ivanna…Nervy is just a little kid,” Melody stared.

   I was not sure whether to believe her. I thought about Kyril and decided that maybe Ivanna had tried to run away, and maybe support from ECBAS had even helped her. The story was oddly believable after all.

   We walked back to the Teen Pavillion about five pm. It was time to get ready for dinner, and the long, evening break. I watched the guardians and hosts arrive to retrieve their teens. I decided I did not want to be the last to leave and headed off toward Kuo-Chang’s for dumplings and hot tea.

   The dinner made me think of eating Chinese with my dad. I missed him, but wasn’t sure he was even in the country. If Amanda and company had really wanted to do serious damage in revenge for my recruiting Mitchell, they would have told me that Dad had left even if he left all the time, the thought of him gone when I needed him always, always  hurt, and yes, you can say that twice. You can say it a hundred times.

   I passed the chess and board game lounge on my way out of Kuo Chang’s. Inside, two adult men hunkered over a chess board. I thought of my father. There had to be engineers and others who came in shifts to maintain the place, just as there would always have to be tutors for parents to hire.

   The Sidlows had tested the system out on me last fall. I had to laugh at that now, but the laughter came close to tears. I thought of finding Ms. Marmelstein, but I was afraid to make the call and have it traced. “The walls have ears,” I told myself.

   I realized I was behind in my studies, and not really up to meeting with new kids of whom there were half a dozen discovering they did not rank well enough for membership in the elite, teen group. The day after tomorrow, I’d be gone and leave no trace. I really wouldn’t and I told myself that was a very good thing.

   There was a business center located at Level S4 of Building 1. I went there and found a computer where I could create an outline for a Connecticut Yankee. Later I found table space in what would be a conference room and worked on math problems. It was well after midnight, when Amanda entered the conference room. I expected Marcus Sidlow or maybe even Kayla, but Amanda was paid help and needed to be at her post.

   “What are you doing here?” I asked.

   “Haley covered for me so I could go look for you. Jersey Dom and Dylan were both worried about you.”

   “Dylan?” I asked.

   “He’s nobody’s fool and neither is Dom. Fighting all the time takes its toll.”

   I did not asnwer. I was aware I was somehow treating Amanda shabbily, but I couldn’t help it. Amanda toyed with my copy of Connecticut Yankee. “Did you finish this long book?” she asked.

   I showed her my outline. She picked up one of my scrap papers with solved and checked math problems and a few proofs. “You really got work done. You’re the real thing I guess, but after what you’ve been through.”

   “My step mom wouldn’t talk about Ivanna,” I reminded the counselor.

   “Doesn’t it hurt to be tough?” Amanda answered.

   “Yeah,” I replied. “Lots’ of things hurt.”

   “Come on and take a break with us,” Amanda tried to persuade me. “You’ve got tomorrow to study if that’s what you want to do.”

   I followed Amanda back to the Teen Pavillion and led two conga lines. I tried to dance with Jared but he refused. A newcomer boy in a white Polo shirt danced with me. He talked about clubs in New York. I told him I lived in the City. Then I told him I attended Brooklyn Tech. “For real, why? Aren’t all the girls there ugly?”

   “You think I’m beautiful?” I asked. I gave the boy my business card.

   “Holy shit! Wait till I tell all the kids at Stepanac.”

   “Just remembe to tell the ones in the resistance,” I reminded him.

   I helped the counselors clean up. Then I went for a walk with Amanda on the above ground trail. We didn’t say much. We didn’t have much to say. She said she’d miss me and told me I had a very good attitude. “You’re a great advertisement for Young Achievers.” I was not sure whether to thank her. I waited for misguided words of advice.

   “I bet you even have artists in your organization,” she added.

   I nodded.

   “Real artists because art takes work.”

   “Isn’t what you do here arts and crafts?” I asked.

   “Craft is just people’s art,” Amanda smiled. “I love folk art and three dimmensional sculpture, the hands on stuff. I don’t have much patience for theory.”

   I told Amanda about learning lighting code and hand tracking and learning to fix broken lights at school.

   “It’s a good story, Kore,” commented Amanda. “You made a few very good choices. Consider yourself lucky. I’m not so lucky.”

   “What are you going to do?” I wish I had not asked it.

   “This job ends in August. I’m going to decide then. As an adult, there are a lot fewer consequences for me, no matter what I choose. The unpaid fanatics needs people like Dylan and me to maintain the appearance of a normal resort for guests. I do my job as a paid employee. It’s that simple.”

   “What about Dylan?” I asked.

   “He does the same thing. He’s in a different place ideologically but he also understands. He wants to make sure everybody goes back in one place and doesn’t defect which of course can’t happen. I know that now.”

   We let the conversation about ECBAS and Young Achievers dwindle away. Amanda talked about her favorite places to eat. She left me on the beach below the Building 2 villas. I climbed to the Sidlow’s villa. The lights were still on. Hannah, Margolin, and Davida were trying on clothes for tomorrow’s dance. Troy DeVilliers was going to make an appearnce at Tiqi. “I know you don’t care about these things,” mentioned Kayla.

   I shrugged. “I wish we could do something for you,” Kayla cooed. No, she didn’t coo. It was necessary to keep the tutors and the other paid help reasonably happy. After all adults could always look for work someplace else.

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