Read Online Lighthouse Island by Paulette Jiles - Free Book Online Page B

when more than five people were running down or up the stairs, which they did at lunch. Ten thirty in the morning meant an arrest crew. Nadia calmly took up her tote bag from the lower shelf of the cart and put on her hat and walked over to a bulletin board and ripped off a notice about the tissue engineering and permissible rage program for young men. A crowd of people thundered like confused beasts into the far end of the hall, carrying balloons and grinning in all directions.
    Who put this up? she said to them. Do you know who put this up? This is outrageous.
    What?
    The man in front stopped in confusion; behind him a woman in a white tunic carried a boxy portfolio that said Pedicures in bright pink with cartoons of smiling toes.
    Hey! We’re here to deliver a birthday party for the oversupervisor! Come on! Only some special people are invited! Are you Nadia Stepan?
    Office workers with alarmed faces peered out of doors.
    There’s a drawing for a pedicure! said the woman. She was trying so hard to smile happily that her lips shook.
    Just a minute, damn it, I am going to find out who dared put this up, said Nadia. Somebody’s going to pay for this, and I mean pay . In a state of near-paralyzed dread Nadia managed to sound convincing.
    They stared at her in a perplexed silence.
    She picked up her tote bag and stormed off with the bulletin in her other hand, down the stairs, out the front door, and onto the street.
    I t was not good to move too fast. She wadded up the bulletin and threw it away and sauntered through the crowds, across the street to a notions stand. There was a young girl on the other side of the plank counter. Her green-and-yellow flag hung limp in the heat. The girl shook a fly-brush of newspaper strips over crumbling pies made of rye flour and tapioca and over the green Quench candies, her tin can for contributions to bribe money. A long brown bus was parked in front of the entrance to Nadia’s office building and on its side was painted, over windows and all, Surprise Parties and Special Occasions! It burned oil like a waste dump and since the windows were closed the temperature inside had to be well over a hundred. People inside it were probably fighting for their lives.
    The girl looked at the bus and said, quietly, They dry people out. Then they’re like leather.
    Nadia watched as more men in blue coveralls got out with balloons. She laid three pennies on the plank. How do you know?
    I know, the girl said. They turn people into like thin wood.
    Nadia reached for a jar of green candies and shook out three and dropped them from her trembling hand and snatched them up again. They cost either a copper penny each or a hundred Cessions paper dollars. Three pennies on the counter and one in the bribe can.
    A sudden noise from up the street sounded like an enormous flock of birds calling. The noise resolved into human voices; voices of alarm, surprise. A dense crowd of people ran toward her down the sidewalks and the middle of the street, slamming into others who had stopped. They were yelling, Premature demolition! Get back!
    Women in hats and office dresses turned and ran on their little heels, men in suits and ties, workmen in coarse cotton overalls carrying the orange warning signs, women with their baskets of street food for sale, all running, swarming past the party bus.
    A thump sounded, as if the air had been struck with a massive, soft hammer. Bricks and drywall and boards burst up in a grainy giant fountain, far over the rooftops. A mushroom cloud of rolling dust came down the narrow canyon of the street bringing with it bits of cotton from burst mattresses, raining down on the people darting into doorways, alleyways, with their hands over their heads. Buddy cars came to a stop and the drivers got out and ran.
    Nadia bolted for a pair of double doors going into a production building. People crowded in after her, coated with a white, fine powder. Nadia’s clothes were crumpled,