Now that he had reached this endgame, he realized he could not stand feeling regular, smiling breathlessly at his own minor-league daring. Going back to his Senate bed would be safe and not-scary, because he would be following Jopek’s orders instead of this “what-does-she-think-of-me” feeling. Yeah, it would be not-scary, but here was a true fact about Michael Faris: right then, he missed danger. He missed the type of recklessness that somehow also made him feel safe, the kind he dashed into blindly, trusting only that he would feel his heart and breathe his breath and smile his way out of it.
When he replied, “I’m fine. I don’t think I’m tired yet. Do you want to maybe hang out right now?” he felt sort of terrified, because one: she was beautiful, and two: he wasn’t, and three: Jopek, who’d seemed unhinged earlier, might catch them.
But mostly, at last, a little yes-yes—that was what Michael felt.
“Absolutely,” Holly said. Genuinely happy. Almost like, despite Jopek’s rules, she had been wanting him to ask.
Which was, of course, The Best Thing Ever.
So after they ran through the marble halls that sang with moonlight and rang with calls of Bellows, after they reached the rotunda with the ruined chandelier, after they jokingly high-fived the rows of governor statues—after all that, Holly opened an oak door padded with leather, identical to the one at the other end of the hall, and whispered, “Welcome to the Capitol Sanctuary.” Pews and a pipe organ, and no cots or postcrisis clutter. “They used it for state funerals and stuff. I think they sealed it after things got awful-awful. The captain actually had to move a coffin out of here and down into somewhere in the Capitol’s basement—that kid who died in a coal mine, remember? Cady Gibson. But it’s just beautiful in here, you know? Anyway, what do you wanna do?”
In a movie, the hidden meaning of the question would be something like: baby, let’s smooch. But he didn’t think it was now. Anyway, he didn’t really have anything in mind.
Michael shrugged, his heart pounding from running and from nerves.
Holly thought a second, then she wove through the pews, to a podium at the front of the sanctuary, flicking the microphone it held with a fingernail.
“So. Everyone,” she said in a game-show-host voice, “welcome to The Holly Hour! Tonight’s guest is a very special friend of mine: Holly. Holly, how have you been?
“Not so bad. Just hanging out with dead people.
“And how is that?
“I find them beautiful.
“Is that so?
“Especially their skin.
“Because it’s beautiful?
“Because it’s a-peeling.”
Michael chuckled, did a rimshot.
Holly faked an awkward pause at her joke, pulling an “eesh!” face to a “camera.”
“Now, our next guest here in West Virginia is a guy who hails all the way from West Virginia. Please welcome Michael . . .” She gave him an expectant look.
“Oh,” he said. “Michael Faris.” Holly’s “Come on down!” applause echoed in the chamber as Michael walked to the front of the Sanctuary and sat in a fancy priest’s chair, a few feet from the left side of the podium.
“So Michael.” Very “Oprah” solemn. “Tell us about yourself. How old were you the first time you got pregnant?”
And for the next couple minutes, sitting there after curfew in this secret sanctuary, Michael joked with this cute-hot girl. Which felt kind of enjoyably risky in itself: he kept checking the sanctuary door out of the corner of his eye, making sure that Jopek wasn’t coming in. And he really did want to impress Holly, to keep the conversation light, so that she would see the purposely-and-perfectly-selected Michael.
Then Holly said, “Now, let’s get back to something we started discussing before the commercial break: what are the things you miss about the world Before?”
“Um, how ’bout you first?” Michael said, keeping his tone casual.
“I miss knowing what I’m gonna do every day. I mean, I don’t miss class, necessarily, but I miss knowing I have class, and then I have lunch and more class, and then I have Quiz Bowl or Mathletes or Readers’ Regime—Michael! Don’t laugh! A-hole!”
“I’m n-n-n—” Michael chuckled.
But she was laughing, herself, and her smile was somehow even more open than usual. It was a little like a live wire. “I miss who I got to be in class,” she said, playing with loose wood paneling on the podium. “Because now . . . okay and maybe this’ll sound cocky, but whatever—it’s like I’m still smart, but who cares? Not that I want