UnBound - Neal Shusterman Page 0,79
gave them a choice. Either leave their lives behind and disappear with him and Risa, or say good-bye to him forever. They would live out their lives without him, knowing that he never forgave them for signing his unwind order.”
“So in your scenario, what did they do?”
“I can’t be certain, but I do know that they sold their house. I heard that the guy who bought it is gonna turn it onto some kind of public attraction, you know, like Graceland, although I can’t see it—I mean it’s just a house. But then, Graceland is also just a house—I been there and I wasn’t all that impressed—so I guess it’s possible. Anyway, I think they accepted Connor’s challenge. They took off and they’re all together.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere mobile,” Grace says. “My first thought was the opposite, of course. That they hunkered down in Alaska or some other place where they’d stay put and have no outside contact. Nobody sees them, and they don’t gotta see no one else, living off the land. But you know Connor—that’s not him. His life’s all about motion. He’s like that shark he’s got on his grafted arm—he’s gotta keep moving or die. So I think they got themselves some sorta sailboat or catamaran. Nothing fancy. I mean, his family wasn’t rich. Just a simple kind of boat, and maybe they’re tooling around the Mediterranean, minding their own business, hanging out in smaller, less-traveled ports. Or maybe they’re using their boat to save AWOLs in places where there’s still unwinding. That’d be Risa’s idea, and although Connor’d say he doesn’t want to do that anymore, he’s just saying it so that Risa can convince him. And his parents get behind it, because again, it’s part of the deal: Love me; love my choices. And maybe they’ll come back someday and maybe they won’t. But I think they’re happy. Not happily-ever-after kind of happy, because no one gets that. I mean we all get sick, and get hit by trucks, and fall out of love, and stuff—but I swear I can see Connor and Risa dangling their feet off that catamaran, saying, Sure as hell beats Sonia’s basement.”
Hayden has to laugh again, because the way she paints it, he can see it too.
“The proof, though,” Grace says, “will be the brother. Luke, or Lucas, or whatever his name is.”
“What about him?”
“They’d want him to finish school. They won’t leave him behind, though, so five’ll get you ten that he’s enrolled in some boarding school that’s not too far from the Mediterranean Sea. Maybe Barcelona or Athens, or Ephesus, or Nice. Find a Luke, or a Lucas, who just started a few months ago at some boarding school out that way, where they teach in English, and you’ll know I got it right.”
Grace smiles, proud of herself, treating the whole thing like it was a fait accompli. Like a mathematical proof beyond reproach. Then her smile fades. She pours herself some lemonade and pours more for Hayden, even though he tells her he doesn’t want any more.
Then she says, “I didn’t ask you here to talk about Risa and Connor. Well, I guess maybe I did, but that’s not the main reason.”
“Right,” says Hayden. “Your interview. How Grace Skinner became the name behind organ printing. How she became worth half a billion dollars in less than a year. A true American fairy tale.”
Grace slams down her glass hard enough to make half the lemonade shoot out. “First of all, I’m only half of the name behind the printer. It’s the Rifkin-Skinner Biobuilder. Rifkin made it—I just handed him Sonia’s broken prototype, and he got it to work, and I still feel pretty damn guilty I didn’t insist they call it the Rifkin-Rheinschild Biobuilder, after Sonia and her husband, but I figured it was too hard to spell, and after all I’d been through I wanted some credit. Second of all—like I said—there are no fairy tales, American or otherwise. And third, I don’t do interviews, because they make me sound stupid, and I’m tired of sounding stupid, because it makes me feel stupid, and I never want to feel stupid again. I got enough money so that no one calls me stupid to my face, but I don’t want them saying it behind my back neither.”
“I don’t think you’re stupid, Grace,” Hayden says very honestly. “Yes, there are some things you lack that other people have—but you compensate. There are things you can do that put everyone else to