The horde of Capitol tourists thins out substantially by the next Parcel Day, though a slow but steady trickle of new visitors does replace some of them. About two months after the Victory Tour I meet a pretty Capitol girl as I cut through the markets on the way home from an afternoon session at my old Training School. I stop to let her get a photo with me and she tells me that she'll be visiting a certain restaurant for lunch tomorrow, if I care to join her. I go home and have a long hard think about what I want to do.
I know from my conversations with Mags and with other young attractive victors like Piper and Lapis that I will be expected to entertain certain Capitol citizens. I won't quite hit my sixteenth birthday by the next Games, but I won't be far off it. Sixteen is the age where I'm permitted some control over my finances and where I can apply to not have a legal guardian living with me, or when I travel. It's still two years short of being considered an adult, but from what Mags has hinted it's the age where the Capitol starts thinking of people less as a child and more as a grown up. Old enough to think of in a romantic sense without being creepy.
President Snow didn't say anything directly to me during my three days in the Capitol beyond a brief hello and congratulations at the start of the Gala banquet at his mansion. I wonder if he's planning on letting me watch my first tribute die before having the inevitable talk about what I owe to my sponsors. That's how Mags suggested he'll phrase it, based on what some of the other victors have said.
Either way, it sounds like I have at most six to twelve months before I'll be expected to become the lover of a rich Capitol lady. Or man. I think of Piper's comment, that some things should be done on your own terms and decide I will meet up with Juno for lunch. I'm not sure if I'll feel comfortable following through with anything that happens after, if it happens. Judging by my experience on the Victory Tour, if she does start hinting that way my hormones will take over and I'll be less morally concerned in the moment anyway.
Ric finds me sitting on the cliff edge, tossing a rock from hand-to-hand while I stare out over the ocean, considering vaguely once more whether it would just be easier to take a leap off a high cliff and simply let the tide carry me away.
I snort to myself as he approaches – I know from many years of visiting Mags that the water below this ledge is plenty deep enough to jump into without harm, and that I'd never be able to let myself just lie still in the water afterwards. I'd need to go out past the far end of the Village fence before there were rocks directly below and even then I'm not sure the drop would be enough to finish me off cleanly.
Ric sits down beside me and claps a hand gently on my shoulder as he swings his legs over the edge to dangle next to mine. He's the closest thing I've had to a father these last five, nearly six years and I've missed spending as much time with him on the boat since I'd gone back to visiting the Training Schools two afternoons a week since the Tour ended.
He's a very plain-spoken man, tells it how it is. Grounded is how Greta describes him, a man who knows what really matters in life and what is nice to have, but not hardship to go without (something she occasionally struggles with after growing up in the Village with a rich victor for a mother, especially as her own father was never in the picture).
"Dinner's nearly ready," Ric says as we watch the last of the day boats heading in with their catch – too late for the market now, though not a problem if they're selling to the packing plants. "Nice side of beef in that red sauce, with some of those new taters, smelled good when I stuck my nose in the kitchen."
I grin at him, stomach growling in appreciation – unlike most of District Four, Greta's upbringing meant she grew up eating and cooking all sorts of different meats and other luxury foods. Oris, Ric and I are all willing victims of both Greta's and Mags' kitchen experiments.
I look down at the rock in my hand, then back up at the man beside me.
"How would you feel if I had a visitor to the house Ric?"
Ric raises an eyebrow. "It's your house, isn't it? You can have whoever you like as long as they don't cause any of us trouble. Why, is there someone you want to spend time with? A pretty girl perhaps?"
He grins at me; Ric and his crew have spent the months since my Games teasing me lightly about all of the women who have been throwing themselves at me. Kosta, Ric's first mate has a whole crazy collection of stories he's made up about various Capitol actresses, singers, even a former Liaison who is now a junior government minister all pining away in their unrequited love for me since the moment I tore my ripped shirt off during the Games. I've just laughed along with it, not wanting to admit that his silly stories may end up being closer to the truth than not. I don't know if Mags has had the same conversation with Ric as she's had with me about what may be coming. I doubt it – I don't think he'd be as flippant about it if he knew all the details.
"I don't know," I tell him, trying to work out how exactly to describe the pretty Juno and her flirting.
"Don't know if she's pretty or don't know if she's a girl?"
I swing a mock punch at his arm as he chuckles. "District or Capitol?" he asks after he catches his breath.
"Capitol," I admit and he nods slowly.
"Don't know about bringing her up here – there's plenty of folk keeping an eye on this place and your comings and goings are still news. But if you're going to do something…" he grins and juts his jaw out like Kosta's, mimicking the man's deeper growl "disreputable..."
I laugh at the impression and follow though the logic.
"Better to do it with someone from the Capitol than from Four, who might think it meant more than I want it to?"
He nods. "Also, assuming she's a tourist, odds are you won't have to see her again. Or her parents, if they happen to object."
There are more than a few District Four mothers I wouldn't want to cross. In our district, anything more than a few kisses is seen as inappropriate unless the couple is married or getting very close to it. Unless you live on the Wharf Row, where some ladies and a few men make their living in clandestine brief relationships, looked down on by everyone else in the district. I briefly consider whether that would be an easier way for me to get my start, then wrinkle my nose and dismiss the idea. Thinking back on some of the comments I've heard about Wharf Row, I don't particularly fancy having to go to the Capitol to be treated for some sailor's disease.
"You're young, male and have no shortage of women throwing themselves at you," Ric reminds me. "As long as you treat them right, I don't see that there's anything wrong with it. Sometimes I think our District is too stiff-necked with outdated opinions on how things should be."
"And since half the Capitol thinks I'm, you know…" I wave my hand and Ric nods. "I just want to know what I'm doing. Get to decide, before someone else makes me."
He claps my shoulder again and doesn't say a word against it, which helps me settle my decision to go meet with the pretty Juno and see where it goes. As I toss the rock off the edge of the cliff and watch it fall with a tiny splash into the water below, a related thought jumps into my head.
"Ric, how did you and Greta…I mean how did you know she was the one? The only one? At least I assume she was…"
Ric grins again and nods slowly to himself before telling me, "I was seventeen when I met Greta. It was during the Games actually, Thirty-Sixth? Thirty-Seventh? I forget. The one where the quiet boy from Nine skulked around after the volunteer pack until they all killed each-other off. Teena, our girl tribute that year was dating of one of my friends. Not a volunteer, but she'd trained a bit. We'd all decided to keep a good eye on Bream in case he did something stupid if she didn't make it back. She made the last eight along with the rest of the pack so they were interviewing Bream up in the square along with Teena's family. We were all sitting with him during mandatory viewing so we could take care of him if anything happened."
Every year they put up huge temporary screens in the Square, and along the larger buildings in the markets so that people who are out working the stalls or shopping at them can still make mandatory viewing. For many younger people, it becomes a popular place to hang out with friends during the evening.
"Greta was in the square too; she and her brother were called down to answer questions about our boy tribute since he was from the Community Home. Boy was a volunteer, used to do some work around Mags' garden in return for her sponsoring his training fees, you know she sponsors a few kids every year for it. Greta wasn't close with the boy, but there weren't many other folk for them to ask about him, he didn't really have any friends.
"Both our tributes died that night, the pack went melee forgetting about the kid from Nine. Greta saw us all shielding Bream from the cameras when Teena got run through, and she charged in yelling about how our boy tribute– I can't even remember his name now – was going to crush the fight and claim victory for our district. Distracted all the camera folk long enough for us to get Bream away somewhere he could grieve privately. Think it's probably why she ended up on the reaping stage herself the next year."
He swallows heavily and nods again with a soft smile.
"She'd followed us up a few days after the Games to make sure Bream was ok, didn't need for anything. You know how she is, give the shirt off her back to those she cares for telling you all the while how to properly wash and fold it."
He and I share a smirk at that.
"I took a liking to her and she must have liked me because we kept finding ourselves in the markets around the same time every Sunday afternoon. I was a few years older, of course, but I quickly learned who was in charge. There had been a few other girls I'd walked about with over the years, but none had ever stuck as much as she had. It was still nothing official until that next reaping, when they called her name and she walked up on the stage and there was that silence when they asked for volunteers."
I think back to that moment of awful silence when I realized no-one else was going to step up for Oris, and sympathize.
"The Escort went to declare the reaping over, but Mags shushed him, looked out at the crowd and cleared her throat real loud and pointedly. Harwyn, that was Greta's little brother, he'd only died a month before. Got one of those nasty lung fevers and burned up before they could do the paperwork to get him to the Capitol for treatment – he was only ten, not even reaping age yet. Both Mags and Greta were still in mourning for him, it would have been too cruel to lose her two remaining children so close together. Eventually one of the girls who Mags had sponsored the training for stepped up. Good thing too, the girl only made it a few days. Mutt came after the volunteer pack and left her mangled enough for the others to finish her."
He swallows again and pauses for a moment before continuing.
"It was that moment with Greta on the stage. I realized I felt something for her then, more than just the few kisses and the long walks we'd had. It was my last reaping so I knew I was safe. Greta still had a couple to go, but she made it through them. We got married not two weeks after the Thirty-Ninth Games ended, with her mother's approval. And your mother's approval, of course."
I remember how close Greta and my mother were when I was little. Like Greta, she'd grown up a bit differently – my Grandfather had gone off with some other woman not long after my mother was born. My Grandma had some poor health issues and ended up hiding away in her bed for weeks at a time (pining away for her lost husband, according to the District gossip) so my mother was raised mostly by her uncle, who tried his best but didn't know much about the needs of little girls.
My Grandma died when I was just a baby so I don't remember her at all. I do have some vague memories of my mother's uncle before he passed and a distinct memory of my mother in a screaming row with one of her cousins in the markets when I was seven. Mom told me after that fight that she had never got along with her uncle's three sons who thought she was an intruder on their family. When all of the Odair side of the family died in the storm, I didn't bother even asking about going to Mom's cousins, not when Greta was happy to have me.
Greta and Mom had been best friends since their earliest school days and Mags had helped fill the void of strong maternal figure in Mom's life. Like Greta, Mom married a fishermen, though my Dad's family had been well off enough to own their boat and take on however many extra crew we needed outside of the family.
Just weeks before our boat went down, one of our crew had informed us that she'd got a new place working alongside her husband and that she'd be leaving in a month. Two days before our tragic final voyage my Grandma had agreed to take on Ric as the replacement, starting from the next month. I'm glad that he didn't join us straight away, otherwise Oris and Greta would be missing half their family too.
We both turn when we hear Greta calling us from the window for dinner. I stand and give Ric a hand up – he's been working all day and jokes that he's starting to creak almost as bad as the yardarm in a crosswind. He slings his arm over my shoulder – a bit of a reach these days as I'm less than an inch shorter than him now, and says "It's not been an easy road for you Finn, and it's not going to get any much easier for a while. So take the good while you can and enjoy it. If you're worried about becoming part of…all that, just remember that you're a good person and to do as right as you can by everyone you can. Can't ask for more than that."
I sling my own arm around his back and squeeze lightly – sometimes I do go off on a bit of a dark tangent, wondering why I have any right to think I'm a decent person after killing my way through the arena. But if it wasn't me, it would have been Oris doing it and I don't think he would have made it out. I didn't have a choice in the killing, other than letting them kill me and to me that's no real choice at all. I didn't go out of my way to cause unnecessary pain, to torment someone weaker than me. I made them all as clean kills as possible and respected them in their deaths. If I can live with that being all right, then I should be able to say the same for enjoying the company of pretty girls. As long as I remember that they're still people, not things for me to use and enjoy, I shouldn't be dragged into the world of the Capitol freakshow.