Free Xvi by Julia Karr

bed. “How are you all going to fit in their apartment? It’s tiny. And isn’t it just for retired people?”
    “The building owners agreed to let us live there and are moving us into a bigger place.” I took the bedding from under Sandy’s elbow and stuffed it in a box marked Nina. In the bottom, under all my clothes and my meager stash of treasured art supplies, was Dee’s baby book. I would search it as soon as things got unpacked at our new home.
    “So where will you go to school?” Sandy said. “I can’t imagine going to a Chicago school. They go all the way up to tier ten. Can you imagine? Top-tiers, right next to girls like us! We don’t even have anyone above five. If I could be around all those tier-ten guys ...” Her voice trailed off. I glanced over at her; she was lying on the bed staring up at the ceiling with a smile on her face.
    “Snap out of it,” I said. “The apartment building is in the same district where I lived before. So I’ll be at Daley along with Mike and Derek. And, yes, there will be all tiers—all the way up to ten. Like that’s going to make a difference.”
    “It will, too, make a difference,” she said. “Besides, you’ll have your friends and I won’t have anyone.”
    “Those guys aren’t you, Sandy.” I sat down next to her. “Promise you’ll come see me?”
    “Of course I will.”
    She’d just launched into all the things we could do when Gran interrupted. “Nina, Mr. Eskew’s here, ready to load up the trannie. It’s time.”
    Sandy’s stepfather had offered (at Mrs. Eskew’s prodding I was sure) to help us move our things. There wasn’t much to load. Fifteen minutes later, Sandy and I were standing at the curb with Gran and Dee, waiting for our ride to the express station. Pops had gone ahead with Mr. Eskew.
    When the hire trannie rounded the corner, I grabbed Sandy and held her tight. Sandy was crying, but I didn’t dare. Dee was watching us, and if I broke down, she would, too. I had to be strong. I shoved away the thought that maybe someone should be strong for me. That wasn’t going to happen.
    I hung my head out the window, waving until Sandy was a dot in the distance. On the trip in, I barely listened to Gran and Dee’s chatter. I wanted silence ... quiet ... and the luxury of being able to cry. But none of that was possible. There was too much to do.

    When we got to the apartment, Mr. Eskew and Pops were already there. Earlier the building maintenance guys had packed up all of Gran and Pops’s things and moved them into the larger place. Dumped them, was more like it. The apartment looked more like a storage unit than a home.
    I helped Sandy’s dad get the trannie unloaded. I never liked him much, especially not the way he looked at Sandy, but I still thanked him for the help. Watching him drive away, the full force of the situation hit me. Ginnie was gone. My life would never be the same again.

    After a dinner of nut butter sandwiches and soy milk—Gran hadn’t been shopping and the cook center hadn’t been programmed yet—Gran put us all to work setting the apartment in order. I was unpacking one of their boxes marked Living Room when I came across a handful of books.
    I turned one over and over in my hand. “B.O.S.S. took all our books,” I said. “I still don’t understand why they went through all of our stuff. Ginnie wasn’t the criminal, she was the victim. Do they always do stuff like that?”
    “They do whatever they want,” Gran said.
    “Couldn’t have stopped ’em if you’d tried,” Pops said. “Nothing to find, though, was there? As if poor Ginnie had anything to hide.”
    Gran didn’t respond, but I knew something was up from her expression, and I’d have given anything to know what she was thinking. Sometimes, when we’d all visited in the past, she and Ginnie would go into the kitchen and talk alone. They didn’t think I’d noticed that whenever I walked in on them, they’d change the subject. I used