Page 12 of Trade
I’ve never felt older in my life. I take my seat, Amy to my left and Cecily to my right. Cecily lets the weight of her shoulder rest against me as a comfort.
I stare at Bennett, willing him to look down, but he’s as captivated as Meghan by the motes drifting through the stale air in the middle of the hall. He’s not fidgeting. He sits ramrod-straight like his name is in the raffle drum that Barb rolls onto the dais. Like this exercise is a terrible weight, and all he can do is bear it with dignity.
Sometimes, women panic and run. They try to fight their way out of the hall through the rows of people, but we’re trained to link arms and block them, and inevitably, the runners give up and someone guides them back to their seats.
I don’t want to run. I want to leap up onto the dais and rip Bennett out of his seat. I want to drag him down here with me.
I grab the anger with both hands, clutching it tight like an oxygen mask, like taking hits off it will get me through these next minutes.
“In accordance with the third amendment of the Articles of Incorporation, I hereby order the lottery to commence at once and with all due consideration,” Neil intones.
Susan Jordan and Gary Krause, the head of Safety and Compliance, move to their positions as official observers on either side of the drum.
Neil nods to Barb. She begins to crank the creaky brass handle.
The crowd whisper-counts the turns.One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
The knot in my stomach tangles tighter with each turn of the tan wooden drum that is as freshly painted as Neil’s office door.
Barb slides the barrel bolt free. The little door falls open with a thunk. Not a single woman around me breathes.
Barb makes a show of shoving her arm all the way in and rooting around before she draws out a single pale-blue ticket. She holds it high above her head so everyone can see. Everyone’s head tilts back as their eyes follow the scrap of paper, squinting to make out the scribbled name even though the writing is too small to read from the audience.
Barb shows the ticket to Susan. Susan nods with great solemnity. Then Barb shows Gary. He jerks his chin, clasps his hands behind his back, and widens his stance, his jaw clenching.
The tension scrapes.
Barb walks over to Neil, each tap of her heels ringing out in the silence. She hands the ticket to Neil. He hardly glances at it.
I know before he says it, while he’s still inhaling the breath that’s going to say my name. I watch with dawning horror as he broadens his chest and puts away nice guy Neil as he assumes his Head Administrator persona. He doesn’t want to do this, but he has to, for the good of the bunker.
“Gloria Smith.” His voice rings out loud and clear to the very back of the hall.
In the mezzanine and the balconies, there is a collective gasp. In the rows around me, there is an exhalation.
Cecily grabs my hand and holds it tight. “You’re the smartest one of them,” she quickly whispers as the others immediately stand and evacuate the rows per procedure. “You’ll be okay.”
And then with a last squeeze, she’s gone, and I’m surrounded by guards. The hall has erupted in excited conversation and the thud of the wood seats lifting as people stand.
A guard takes my elbow and propels me toward a door to the left of the dais. For a few moments, he is steering me toward Bennett and Meghan who are both still sitting, silent, pale as ghosts and staring into the middle distance.
“Bennett,” I cry and stumble toward him, forgetting in the moment that he isn’t mine anymore, that reality is upside down and backward, that he is the one who did this to me. The guard jerks me back in line, another wraps his hand around my upper arm in a vise grip, and they hustle me away.
It happens so fast. We practically jog through the corridors. We take a security elevator to Level 1. I’ve never been to a numbered floor.
The elevator actually dings when it reaches its destination like all elevators did when I was young, before the buzzers all wore out. The hallways are wider, and the light is different—gray—but a bright gray. Disorder is everywhere, dirt footprints on the tiles, crates and barrels and every sort of container shoved against the walls. One stack is so old and damp that the boxes have collapsed into each other, forming a leaning tower of moldy cardboard.
There is litter on the floor. Torn paper. Plastic peels. Dead leaves the shape of which I’ve never seen before.
And there are guards everywhere, some lifting and hauling things, others lounging against the wall, gawking as I’m hurried past.
I catch a glimpse inside a room, and it’s overflowing with rusty metal equipment heaped in piles that rise all the way to the ceiling. These must be storerooms.
Who was traded for a heap of busted parts for machines that don’t even work anymore? Our last utility vehicle broke when I was a kid.
We get to a pair of heavy, windowless double doors at the end of the hallway, and the posted guards swing them open. As soon as we’re through, they slam them shut behind us.
My guards prod me forward up a short flight of stairs, down another corridor, and through another set of solid double doors. The closer we get to wherever we’re going, the more the atmosphere seems to buzz, and the grimmer and more menacing the men stationed along the way. And it’s only men. I haven’t seen a woman since the Assembly Hall.
