Chapter 170

“Even when the world throws its worst and then turns its back, there is still always hope”
—Pittacus Lore, The Power of Six

MY PHONE BUZZED just as I turned in to the school parking lot Friday morning. I’d stopped to pick up Beca so she grabbed my phone and answered it so I didn’t take my hands off the steering wheel. She put it on speaker phone as soon as she said, ‘Hello.’

“Oh. Uh ... Sorry, I was calling Jacob Hopkins,” the voice said.

“I’m here,” I called. “Just driving, Lacie. How are you this morning?”

“Oh. Good. I mean better. Sorry I was such a jerk after the race yesterday,” she said. “Is it okay to ... I mean ... I didn’t mean to call when you were with someone.”

“Do I need to leave the room?” Beca laughed. “We met once, Lacie. I’m Beca. It was probably a little overwhelming when the whole pod mobbed you after the race at North Huntington.”

“I remember. Yeah. Not in a bad way, you know.”

“I’m sorry about the race. Jacob told us all about what happened.”

“Well, I’ll just have to up the pace for regionals at Penn next week. I was calling to ... well, I’m pretty bushed this morning, but I thought maybe you’d want to take a run tomorrow morning. With me. And um ... you know ... whatever,” she said.

“I’d like that,” I answered as I pulled into the parking space and shut off the truck. “I need to stay loose before my run on Sunday. I hope you’re okay with not running a race pace in the morning.”

“No, that’s great. I ... uh ... just want to run a few of the kinks out of my legs, you know?”

“Jacob’s really good at helping his running partners stretch out after a run,” Beca said with an evil glint in my direction.

“If I hadn’t been so pissed yesterday, I’d have been a good candidate,” she said. “Will I see you to run, Beca?”

“Oh, I only do a mile in the morning and am nowhere near Jacob’s easy jog pace. One or two others might join you, though.”

“Okay. Well, I didn’t have a place set for a run. Give me a call and let me know where to meet you, okay?”

“Yeah. Why don’t you come out to the farm where I’m living? Nanette and Em and I usually run about seven on Saturdays now that the sun is coming up later.” I gave her the address and she said she’d see us tomorrow.

“You’d better let Donna know,” Beca said. “Tell her I’ll come out and make breakfast for the runners.”

“Yeah. If we come inside at all. It might be better if we don’t run into Donna since she’s a teacher at Lacie’s school. We might just stay outside.”

Donna was fine with Lacie coming out to the farm and said she’d just stay out of sight if she came in for breakfast and any other recreation we had planned. I couldn’t really think about planning anything, though, because first I needed to meet with the kids in pod two. I’d called each of them individually and they said they had two newer members. I said to please invite them along. I just wanted to have dinner with all of them and check in to see how they were doing.

Of course, it wasn’t just me and their pod. Beca rode out to the farm with me after school and practice. She said she was helping cook tonight. I went to work putting things together. It wasn’t an elaborate dinner. We did a roast pork loin with potatoes and gravy and salad. Beca got a couple of blueberry pies in the oven, too.

At a few minutes before six, I set out to make a pick-up round. None of the kids were old enough for a driver’s license. I stopped to get Donnie and Barb. They directed me to Cindy’s house where she and her younger brother, Luke, came out to join us. Sophie and Brittany were bringing Joyce and Lisa and stopping to pick up another new member of their group, Kate. Finally, I swung by Rachel’s house and picked up Richard.

When we got back, the dining table had been extended to its full size and the eight from our pod and seven from theirs gathered around it.

“Things have been a little crazy around here this fall,” I said as we served the food. “I felt like I haven’t talked to any of you forever. How are you doing?”

“It’s okay,” Lisa said. “You haven’t really met Kate before. You know Luke.” We did introductions all the way around. You could tell the kids were a little nervous about being invited to dinner at Donna’s house. They were constantly glancing at each other to be sure they were using the right fork or something.

“We promised we’d keep an eye out for you,” Donna said. “I know Jacob said the words, but it goes for our whole pod. We need to make sure you are all okay before everything falls apart again next summer.”

“Are you really going to enter the service early, Cindy?” her brother asked.

“I think so. Assuming I can convince our parents.”

“I’ll miss you.”

“I miss my sister,” Richard said. “She’s only been back for a weekend since she left in July.”

“We saw Rachel in DC when we were out there. The camp she’s in is a college campus,” I said. “We’ve been working on some systems that we hope will keep our pod together when we start service.”

“That would be cool. What do we have to do?” Barb said. “I miss Liv as much as Richard misses Rachel. Will you be able to get them together, too?”

“Maybe. They’ll both be a year into their service before the rest of us start,” Beca said. “Jacob is working with the commission that’s rewriting the service law.”

“I don’t know if that will be enough to change the positions of people who are already in service. It looks likely that Rachel will stay in DC, though. We don’t know where Livy will get stationed since her track is so different than ours,” I said.

“That’s one of the things you all need to figure out,” Emily said. “One of the reasons they are able to keep our pod close is we’re all focused around our performers. Jacob and Cindy, obviously, but also Brittany and Desi. You know that Britt will have to volunteer before her eighteenth birthday in order to be with J, Cindy, Beca, and Desi.”

“They made offers for us, though,” Britt said. “We don’t have to actually start service and agree to volunteer until we’ve taken our tests and verified the aptitude they want. In fact, Cindy and I are both taking the PNSAT next week to confirm the offers.”

“Ugh. I don’t even want to think about taking that test,” Lisa said. “It’s like they ask a bunch of questions and from then on your life is determined for you.”

“That’s one of the things we’ll get you help with,” I said. “We have a testing training program that will help you test into the area you want. But that’s what makes it important that you figure out if there is a common area you all want to move into together. You’ll be in much different intake classes with the age spread in your group. Donnie’s the youngest now and is three years behind Lisa and Luke. That’s like it was with Em and me. She’s out of service and I’m just looking at going in.”

“I’ll have to volunteer to enter early to serve with ... anyone else,” Donnie said. “Which is fine if they’ll keep us together.”

“Do you have any thoughts of what you like or want to do?” Nanette asked.

“Yeah,” Lisa said. “We aren’t artistic or athletic like your pod. But we entered a robotics competition this summer. That’s where we met Kate. She’s wicked smart when it comes to computers and robots. We think we might be able to do some cool things by the time we’re ready to finish high school and enter service.”

“That’s cool.”

We talked around the table, had pie and ice cream, and eventually, we took our young counterparts home. We didn’t really talk about Pey or how they were handling her being gone from the group. It was obvious that Barb and Luke were rising as the focus of the others. Maybe they were the newly discovered carbon elements. Kate was very smart but very bashful. For all that there was a two-year age difference, she kept hold of Donnie’s hand through most of the evening. We switched things around a little and I took her home so Donnie didn’t have to let go of her. Luke jumped in Sophie’s car with Lisa and Joyce. I noticed that neither Brittany nor Cindy left the farm.

I dropped Kate off and Donnie walked her to the door. I could see them hug each other and then she bolted into her house as Donnie ran for the truck. It was cute. He crawled into the front seat, leaving Barb in back with Richard.

“Jacob, you aren’t mad at me, are you?”

“Whatever for, Donnie?”

“For having Kate as a girlfriend,” he said. “I was supposed to be Peyton’s boyfriend.” That stung. I was supposed to be her brother and protector. I let her die. My breath sort of shuddered as I drew it in.

“Donnie, did Pey ever want anything for you other than your happiness?” I asked softly.

“Well, no, I guess not. We didn’t like do anything, you know. Other than dance. Pey loved to dance.”

“Yeah. She sure did. Teach Kate to dance. Don’t stop dancing because Pey is gone.”

“We were only ten, you know. I just turned eleven last week and Kate is almost thirteen—well, in four months.”

“Happy birthday,” I said.

“Yeah, thanks. Anyway, I just wanted to make sure you were okay with Kate and me hanging out. She’s shy but she’s really smart. She reminds me of Peyton that way,” Donnie said. “In a good way.”

“Then take good care of her, Donnie,” I said. I pulled up in front of Rachel’s—er Richard’s house. Barb jumped out of the truck with him and I saw her give him a sweet kiss at the door then run back to the truck. She made her brother slide over so she could sit in front, too. The twelve-year-olds were obviously getting along fine. I wondered a little about how their pod would shape up eventually. Donnie and Kate. Barb and Richard. Luke, apparently with both of Brittany’s sisters. Well, some things they had to figure out for themselves.

Nanette and Emily were both with me on the deck when Lacie came down the drive in a Ford Focus that looked like it was about to fall apart. I motioned her over beside my truck and the car kept bucking for a full minute after she’d shut it off and gotten out.