"Barcode?"
"Well…"
"No, I don't have one. You can take a look if you want," Kim lifted her ponytail off her neck. "Cal and I used to draw all over each other when we were little but none of them resembled barcodes."
"Draw on each other?" Logan raised an eyebrow.
"You didn't have any brothers or sisters, did you?"
"No. Only Bennett, who was really my cousin actually."
"Magic Markers were just so cool though. Ever have?"
"Of course," Logan looked insulted. "I wasn't Rembrandt but my mom hung pictures on the fridge just like anyone."
"Okay, okay. You just seem, you know, more at home with cello practice and private tennis lessons than with Magic Markers."
Logan smiled. She was right, sort of. Smiling at memories of his youth, he admitted, "I liked the ones that smelled good."
"Oh yeah!" Kim smiled, playfully punching him. "Cal and I would just sit and sniff 'em like they were filled with cocaine or something, get addicted. We would walk around with colored dots under our noses. The red ones would freak Mom out, like we were bleeding or something. We got a big kick out of making her crazy."
Logan laughed. He had taken Kim to Holbrook again, for another casual luncheon. She had a day off, one of her "use-em-or-loose-em" sick days. With her pony-tailed hair and dressed in a tight black tank top, navy blue sweatpants and a light-gray sweater jacket, she looked ready for a day at the gym instead.
He had spent the entire afternoon slipping in questions about Manticore, genetic engineering and such. She didn't really have answers that satisfied him though.
They must've done a good job on her.
He held fast to his belief.
"The green ones were great too," Kim remembered. "And oh, Halloween was the best! When we couldn't really get costumes anymore, Cal and I made each other into zombies with the washable markers, only sometimes they wouldn't come off so we'd walk around like that for at least two days afterwards."
"I never really celebrated Halloween," Logan sipped his martini.
"Shut up," Kim couldn't believe it. "Really? Damn, I could never pass up a holiday where you ring someone's doorbell and they give you free candy."
"Eh, it wasn't my thing."
"What kind of child were you? Probably a real dork, huh?"
"Yup. Check the glasses."
"I should of guessed. Get beat up a lot?"
"Lost count." He rolled up the sleeve of his Yale sweatshirt and pointed out a scar of slightly wrinkled skin in sort of an elliptical shape on the crook of his elbow. "Billy Witmer, 1999. Cigarette lighter on my arm, second degree burn. Was black for a week"
"Ouch," Kim winced. "I've seen worse but damn. So you never dressed up in a dumb polyester costume your mom got at Party City on the Sale Rack at the last minute because you couldn't decide beforehand?"
"No."
"You were deprived. Did they make you dress up in school?"
"Kindergarten through fifth."
"What was your favorite costume?"
Logan twisted his mouth in thought. "Dracula."
"Favorite Halloween movie."
"Oh I can't remember…it's been a long time since I've sat down and watched a whole movie."
"C'mon, Logan. You're the coolest unemployed guy I've ever met who doesn't smoke pot all day. Not watch movies? Please."
He laughed. "Okay, okay. I think my favorite was Child's Play."
"That was the best!" Kim laughed. "Remember the part when Chuckie's in the elevator and the old woman says, 'Oh look, George. Some child left their doll.' and when she gets off the elevator she takes one more look at it and says—"
"'What an ugly doll'," Logan finished.
"And Chuckie replies?"
"I believe it was something along the lines of, 'Fuck you'."
"Yes!" Kim clapped, laughing. "That movie cracked me up. I mean, it's a doll, right? I had Barbies scarier than that."
"I'll have to take your word for it."
"God," Kim stirred her Long Island iced tea. "It's so fun to have someone to talk to about pre-Pulse stuff."
"Yeah…" Logan said a little absent-mindedly. "So, Cal's your only sibling?"
"Unless my mother isn't telling me something, yes. Just me and Cal."
"Have you lived in Idaho all your life?"
"For as long as I can remember."
Logan's head snapped up at that point. What did she just say?
"Do you remember always being in Idaho?"
"I guess. I know I was born somewhere else, but I can't remember…my mother only told me a couple of times. I think she said it was Virginia."
"Oh?"
"I think I was Virginia and Cal was Minnesota. No…or was I Minnesota?"
"Move around a lot?"
"Well, before my parents had kids they couldn't decide where to settle. See, my mother was born in Spain and lived in New Jersey when she came to America when she was about four. My father was English, moved to New York when he was eighteen to go to college. They couldn't find a happy medium. See, my mother wanted to stay in Jersey, my father wanted to go back to England. So they would move every so often, maybe once a month, to find a place they both agreed with. Cal and I are four years apart so there was a lot of space to move between the two of us. I guess Idaho was the big winner," she added sarcastically. "I'm due for a conversation with my mother anyway. I can ask her then. My mother's like an elephant—she never forgets."
*
"Well, Kimber-Leigh, you've got me on the phone," Gracia Addison sighed. "What do you want?"
"What makes you think I want something?" Kim rolled her eyes. She had the phone in one hand and a bowl of mac-and-cheese in the other, a light dinner. She was wearing a loose white tank top and blue silk pajama pants, her hair in pigtails.
"Every time you call me you want something. Why don't you call Calvin if you're broke?"
"Mom, I'm living in Foggle Towers. I work six days a week, twelve hours a day, sometimes more. I'm far from broke." Kim crinkled her eyebrows in frustration.
"Well, what is it?"
"Do you remember what state I was born in?"
"Wyoming; why?"
"Wyoming?" she raised an eyebrow. She had already told Logan she'd never been to Wyoming. This was an odd turn of events.
"Yes. We lived in New York until your father found good work in South Dakota. Then we moved to Minnesota where Calvin was born two years later. Then we went to Wyoming, which was a big mistake. But yes, you were born there. Two months early, too! Then your father was transferred to Virginia when you were only one and a half weeks old and then when you were two we went to Idaho. Your father's job was a pain in the ass but what could I do but follow?"
"Oh…that's why…"
"Why what?"
"That's why I though I was born in Virginia."
"No. Wyoming. I remember."
"I just remember being in Idaho my whole life."
"Well you were almost there your whole life. Darby's your home, Kimber. It always will be."
At this point Kim knew her mother was trying to persuade her to come home. "So you're positive you were in Wyoming when I was born?"
"I remember everything. God do I remember! Thirty hours of labor you put me through, Kimber. We almost had to use the jaws of life."
"Spare me. I'm eating, okay?"
Gracia gave a "God-grant-me-the-serenity" sigh and Kim could almost hear her roll her eyes. "Well, I'm on the phone already and mah-jongg doesn't start for another hour and a half. What's new?"
"Ummm…I met a guy."
"I don't like the sound of that. After all the 'guys' you've dated…"
"No, he's pretty cool," Kim replied quickly. "He knows Child's Play."
"Is that suppost to please me? How old is he?"
"Thirty-two," Kim mumbled.
"Thirty-two?! Kimber-Leigh, that—" Gracia began to rant.
"Has nothing to do with what a cool guy he is," Kim interrupted. "Mom, he's really great. He takes me to lunch and we talk about movies and stuff and he collects wines…"
"The man collects wine. That makes me real comfortable."
"Mom, will you listen?" Kim put her bowl down so she could be free to gesture with that unoccupied hand. "He's a nice guy. Plus we don't have a sexual relationship. I don't think it's even a relationship-relationship. His girlfriend died a while ago and I think he's still mourning over her."
"How long ago?"
"Four months."
"I don't know if I like this, Kimber-Leigh. You may be just a rebound thing."
"I am so not a rebound thing. I told you weren't not like that! I think he really loved her, Mom, and he's very deeply scarred."
"He's wounded. You've got yourself a wounded man. That's even worse."
"Oh Jesus Christ, Mother."
Gracia paused. "You know what, Kimber? I'm not going to stop you. My word has never mattered before, so why should it now? Go ahead and keep your man and see how long it lasts. But don't come crying back to me."
Kim felt fury rise in her chest. She gripped the phone, closed her eyes and counted to ten. Then she said, "Mom, he's one of my best friends. Didn't you say it's best to marry your best friend?"
"That had better been a joke, Kimber-Leigh."
"It was so a joke," she picked up her bowl of macaroni again. "You and Daddy were friends first, right?"
"No, we weren't. He practically stalked me until I went out with him. He came to my grandmother's booth every day at the marketplace in the Lower East Side just to chat me up."
"But it must've worked."
"It must've." Gracia paused. "Kimber, I really have to go. Isabel Hamilton is expecting me of mah-jongg in less than five minutes."
"Okay, Mom."
"And Kimber?"
"Yes, Mom?"
"Don't be such a stranger anymore."
*
After Logan dropped Kim off, he sat down and began to disconnect the exo so he could remove it.
She doesn't want to talk about the present. Only the past. The past, not the present. Pre-Pulse…Max new nothing about pre-Pulse…Kim seems to know everything. She's oblivious to the present. They did this. She was pumped full of pre-Pulse information…Manticore was pushed out. She has no recollection. She's drained.
Feeling drained, Logan eased himself into his wheelchair, did some web searching and some downloading. Then he wheeled himself into the kitchen, made himself a little bowl of popcorn and returned to his office. He opened up a special digital viewer from his desktop. He pressed the start button, sat back, and watched Child's Play.