Chapter 23
Sarah had a surprise announcement for the girls, sometime during the next week. Monday. Or Dioday, as Diana reminded herself. Even after hearing the announcement, Diana couldn't quite grasp it. "Could you say that again?"
"I said, I'm getting married." She presented her left hand, and small metal band was encircling her ring finger!
The other girls all stared at it for a moment, before a wave of congratulations and well-wishes broke out. Angie and Naomi both hugged her straight away, and the others clustered around the three of them. Diana was still just standing there, openmouthed.
New Eden's first wedding? At seventeen? All the comforting lies about still having time, and not having to worry about any of this yet, fell away from Diana, and she felt utterly unprotected. The moment Sarah got married, the rest of the older girls would start feeling pressure to do the same. She felt it already.
The others looked unconcerned, even excited with the idea. But then, they hadn't seen what Diana had, yesterday. The image of Sarah and one of the caretaker drones going into the medlab corridor, and trying to make it unobtrusive. Diana had dismissed it at the time, but in retrospect, it made a lot more sense.
"Diana? Are you all right?"
Diana smiled, coming back to herself. "Of course. I'm so happy for you. For both of you," she leaned in and hugged Sarah as convincingly as she could. "I'm just a little startled is all. Aren't you—and the rest of us—a little young for that?"
Sarah waved a hand. "The Faith allows people to get married as young as fourteen, if they have all the parents' permissions. Adam asked for Noah's, uh, blessing I guess, and then he asked me!" She looked down at the ring, and her smile slipped a bit. "He couldn't get a real diamond, but he said he set the mold and poured the molten metal himself. He's trying to get a wedding ring with a real gem in time, though. I guess cutting a gem is a lot harder than I thought it was."
"When is it?" One of the girls asked, while another went with, "in time? How long?"
Sarah grinned again. "One week from today. Abby will be my Maid of Honor of course," she leaned over and kissed Abigail on the cheek. "But the rest of you can be bridesmaids if you want to be."
A bunch of them all began chattering about what kind of dresses they would wear, and what the ceremony would be like, and Sarah joined in with them. Diana held back for a little bit, though. Eventually, she found a lull in the conversation and took advantage of it. "Where will you be living? The two of you, I mean."
Most of them looked like it had never occurred to them, but Sarah's eyes widened a bit. Diana went on hurriedly. "You can't stay in Harmony. There's the girls' side and the boy's side and nothing else. Noah was clear that only unmarried people can live here. That leaves one of the greenhouse domes, which means Adam doesn't have long to clear out enough space to turn it into a home for the two of you. Unless you're staying in the exercise dome," she said feeling her brow furrow. The very idea sounded strange, and she could see the other girls thinking the same.
Sarah gave her a cool look. "I wanted to surprise you all again, later, but you think of everything, don't you?" She didn't look upset, though, and just sighed. "We'll be staying in Greater Harmony. Adam's been working on a place for us for a few days now, even before he popped the question."
"I thought it wasn't ready!" Naomi exclaimed, as the others all made similar noises. "The dome isn't done yet, is it?"
"It's almost done. Noah's been putting so many drones on it, it should be done by the time we graduate. Besides, the house we'll be in is airtight. Adam made sure of it before he started bringing in furniture, and he set up the life-support system himself!"
Diana resisted the urge to snort. Adam didn't know squat about life-support systems. Most likely he'd badgered Bez or Simon into helping him, and then lied about it. She'd get the truth about it from Simon tonight, during one of their phone chats.
The girls were now asking where in the city it was and despite herself, Diana listened closely. Greater Harmony's imminent completion was much sooner than she'd expected, and it would be important to all of them eventually. Sarah explained that the new house was in the exact center of the city, next to one of the columns holding up the new dome. Eventually it would be a skyscraper, and she and Adam would be living on the top floor.
Looking down on the rest of the city, as a king and queen would do from a palace. Diana felt her stomach knot up at the very idea. Of course this had happened. She should have seen it coming! Sarah had always felt like she was in charge, not just because she was the oldest, but because she wanted to be. This was... what was the phrase Simon had used? It was from an old dance style back on Earth. Oh, right. This was a power move.
Sarah was showing her dominance over the rest of them. To be the first woman to be married, and probably the first one to have children, she was declaring herself the most important woman in the world. The queen of New Eden, but within the rules, naturally.
How had she convinced Noah to go along with this? It went against the rules he'd hammered into them since childhood.
Then Diana remembered: Sarah going into that medlab. Noah might have allowed them to get married early, if they'd offered him something in exchange. Noah didn't need anything, or even want anything, as Simon had explained it over the years. But one thing he'd been clear about was the importance of surrogates. The human womb was much safer than the artificial ones he'd designed, and if the very first married woman in New Eden had agreed to become a surrogate, it would be a big influence on all the others.
Diana glanced back over at Sarah, still animatedly chatting with her bridesmaids-to-be. Her belly looked the same, but of course it did. Even if she was pregnant, it would be months before she started to show it. Pressure upon pressure. The moment it came out she was pregnant, they would all start feeling that pressure to follow her example.
"I won't be far away, trust me," Sarah was going on. "On the train, it's barely ten minutes away. They called it, what was the word? Oh right. A commute. Only that's from home to work and back, and I'll be here with you caring for the kids like always."
She sounded so confident, at least to the others it seemed. Diana could tell it for what it really was though: smugness. Everything was going her way, and she knew it.
-.-
"Let's get married," Diana said into the phone, that very night.
There was a sort of strangled noise on the other end, and she felt a slight twinge of shame. She'd just picked up the phone, verified it was him, and then hit him with a proverbial gut punch. After another few moments, his voice responded. "Could you say that again?"
Despite the situation, Diana smiled. The very same words she'd used. Maybe they were spending too much time together. "I'm sorry. What I mean to say is, I would like to get married to you, as soon as possible."
This time there was silence on the other end, stretching on for a bit actually. Diana was starting to get worried he'd gotten an unexpected visitor or something, when he finally spoke. "Why? You didn't want to rush things before, so what's changed? Is this about what Adam said today? Is this some kind of... wedding fever or something?"
"It's nothing like that, Simon. I just want to leave this place already! And I can't do that unless I'm married. I want to be on my own, or at least as close to it as I can get. Do you understand?"
"I think so," he answered slowly. "It's all the little girls, isn't it? You're good at looking after them, but you've never liked doing it."
Diana shook her head, even though he couldn't see it. "There's a lot more to it. I'm trapped here, like a bird in a cage! At least if we were married, I'd be in a cage that I chose. Maybe then I'd be a step closer to flying."
She'd been thinking about the logistics of it all day long. "I figure we make the announcement as soon as you can get a ring. It doesn't have to be anything special; I bet you could whip one up in a day or so. We set the date as soon after Graduation as possible. That way the moment we turn eighteen, we can move into Greater Harmony. Assuming Noah's got it ready by then. From what people are saying, that's pretty much a sure thing. I don't want to live near Sarah and Adam if I can help it though. Maybe a kilometer or two away. We can bike that to whatever business or social functions we might have to do, right? Bez can probably build a pair of bikes for us to use. If I need to wear a dress and it gets torn, then I can just tell them the truth about it."
"Uh, I suppose. Diana, maybe—” he put in, but she went right on.
"Once we're on our own, I won't have to be this caretaker all the time. We can tell people we're trying for a baby of our own, but we never have to do a thing about it. That'll get people off our backs, for years at least! I'll still have to dress up in those ridiculous outfits whenever there's some mandatory get-together. At least in a city there won't be a lawn to take care of, so I can dress how I want to indoors. It won't be like the movies. No white picket fence, no two-point-five kids, and at least the chance I'll be able to fly in secret someday. I can convince Noah to let me behind the stick again—I'm sure I can!"
"Di!" He said sharply, and it startled her into silence for a moment. "Stop."
Diana stared at the phone. "What's wrong?"
"Where do I start? You've thought through all of this, clearly. And most of what you're saying makes sense, but I'm still catching up here. You'll need to give me some time to think about this, ok? What's the hurry, anyway? We've got months until graduation."
She nodded. "You're right. I'm just so frustrated about this. I have to do something, even if it might be the wrong thing! You should have seen her this morning, Simon!"
"You mean Sarah?"
"She was so smug. Setting the trend for all of us, and for everyone who follows. We all follow the Faith, but she'll be remembered as a goddess and she knows it. I'm so sick of this, and I can't wait to be away from it all!"
He hesitated, and Diana could imagine his sympathetic grimace. "Sometimes it's easy for me to forget how hard it must be for you. For all the girls. We can leave the moment we graduate, but you have to be married to do the same. It's not fair."
That was the whole point, wasn't it? "I take it you have a map of Greater Harmony over there somewhere? Of where Adam and Sarah will be living?" She asked
"Yeah. Noah gave them out after the announcement. Our first married couple will be right in the middle, naturally."
"Can you see a good place we could live in? Not near the middle, please."
He didn't answer for a while, and Diana carefully prodded him. "Are you still there?"
"I am."
She took in a relieved breath. "What's wrong then? Are you short on money? We could rent, like you said, from Argent. I'm sure he'll buy a ton of places that would work," she added sardonically.
"No." He hesitated again, but went on before she could ask anything. "Remember when we were in trouble with Noah? Right after we rescued him? Do you remember what you said to me?"
Thrown by the sudden change in topic, Diana tried to think back. "Not really. He agreed to keep our secret because it would cause trouble if people found out what we'd done. What I'd done," she admitted. "That's all I remember about it."
"I tried to tell Noah that it was my idea, and that I'd asked you to help. You said that you could speak for yourself, and you were right. I apologized, and then we went on defending ourselves to him."
Diana didn't see any connection. "Yeah, we did. So?"
"So, what do you think you've been doing for most of this conversation?" He asked pointedly.
Diana closed her eyes, and that earlier twinge of shame came rushing back with a vengeance. "I've been speaking for you."
She heard a sigh on the other end. "That's right. You just assumed that I'd asked you, and that you'd said yes, and then you went on from there. Don't get me wrong, everything afterwards made sense, and you've thought through most of the problems with your plan, but it's still just your plan. You built a beautiful table of ideas, but it's a table without any legs."
She let out a breath of her own. "You're right. I just got so caught up in the plan that I didn't think about that. My plan, I guess. I'm sorry."
"Apology accepted." She could practically hear his smile through the phone.
"So. Simon, named for Simon the Shoemaker, uh, 'son' of Noah, will you marry me?"
"Conditionally," he responded, and she blinked in surprise. "We won't have to do, uh, things together, will we?"
It was her turn to smile. "If you mean more kissing, or sex, no we won't. Aside from the wedding itself, or when we're in public, we can touch each other as much or as little as we both want to. Which for my part isn't much at all; no offense."
He chuckled. "None taken. That was my only condition, so yes, I will marry you."
She hadn't expected any resistance at all, originally, so it was actually a relief to hear. She wanted to thank him for the opportunity he was giving her, to escape from this place, but the words stuck in her throat.
All the other girls seemed fine with their situations. Giddy even, with their fawning praise of Sarah and her engagement. Diana had to put on a show for them, and pretend to be happy as well. Maybe... just maybe, she wasn't alone. Maybe others felt the same way. Only if they did, they didn't have a Simon of their own to use as an escape raft.
She shook her head. There was no point in guessing. If they did, she might find out eventually, but right now it didn't matter. "So, how do you think you'll like having a roommate?" She said teasingly. "A bossy, opinionated one who doesn't know her place?"
"About as much as you'll like having a pushover roommate who even has to be pushed into standing up for himself, I'd say," he responded in kind. "You don't snore, if that helps. At least not loud enough for the console to pick up."
"You don't either. As for the rest, we'll figure it out. As long as we do it together, as equals, no matter what the Faith says. We don't speak for each other, and we don't think for each other. Deal?"
"Deal," he said, and he did sound happy with it.
They both laid on their beds in silence for a time, before she spoke up again. "We never seem to discuss anything trivial recently, do we? It's always super-important thing this, or super-awkward thing that."
"I bet all couples are like that. A bunch of long boring conversations, and then a few really intense ones. Then I think it goes back to long and boring. The Circle of Angst, maybe?"
She smiled, thinking back to when they'd watched the Lion King. She'd liked the movie, but all the singing got to be a bit much. "That's a good name for it. Our lives may not be like the movies, but there's a silver lining to that. It means they won't be like a musical, either."
He laughed at that, and then excused himself to get some sleep. Diana didn't object, mostly because it was clear he needed it. She'd thrown a lot of information at him all at once, and he needed to deal with it. She looked over at the new calendar, and visually counted the days until Graduation. Hers might not have been the ideal plan, but she could live with it. Things were finally looking up.
