won’t know.”
“What if I tell her?”
Reggie smiles sympathetically. “The thing is, I never told anyone about you. So why would she believe the pudgy hippie girl’s story?”
Just like that, the world opens up and swallows my heart whole. Suddenly, I hate his smile. I hate it more than anything I’ve ever seen.
“Reg,” Crystal calls over from where the kids have stopped the game to sit in a circle and smoke. “What’s up?”
“Nothing. Pudge just had to tell me something.”
She looks at me suspiciously. “Okay. Cool.” She winks at him in a way that makes my stomach turn. “Hey, I hear that Big Jon guy has a new hot tub and a sauna in his house. Want to check it out?”
On like Donkey Kong.
“Sure,” he says. “See you, Pudge.”
“My name’s Alex, actually,” I say. “Alexandria Lee. Like the famous Confederate general.”
Reggie looks confused. “Okay. Whatever.”
“Wait, I came to tell you something else,” I say. Reggie turns and looks at me tiredly, as if I’m as annoying as a fly.
“What?”
“I don’t live in Florida.”
“Huh?”
“You e-mailed to say have fun in Florida.”
Crystal frowns and cocks her head.
“Okay, I—”
“I told you where I was going that last night we spent together. Remember? When you tried to get me to have sex, even though I didn’t want to?”
Crystal drops Reggie’s hand.
“Yeah, well. It’s Georgia. I live in Savannah, Georgia.”
Then I turn and ride away from them as fast as I possibly can.
The truth, which Wendy lets me in on, is that they cleared and burned the Sanctuary the week after I left.
First, the powers that be debated it for a little while, she assures me. There was some kind of committee meeting. But apparently my grandmother’s lawyer made good on his promise to get the Drug Enforcement Administration to skip inspecting the RC for ten years in exchange for my going to Savannah. And marijuana, it seems, is a lot more profitable than herbal tinctures. So in the end, urged on by Reggie, Big Jon decided to scrap the remedies my mother had used to make Rain Catcher Farms legitimate and famous, in order to use the space to grow pot.
“We had to use the Sanctuary,” Wendy explains. “It’s the most remote spot on the RC.”
“But that’s not what this place has ever been about,” I say. “I thought our mission was to be a community and to grow organic. We were never about money.”
She looks at me sadly. “I’m sorry, baby. Even Utopia has to pay taxes to the Man.”
I shake my head. “I need to talk to Big Jon. Is he in there?”
She nods. “Sure, hang on, I’ll just tell him.”
“I’m going in,” I say, shouldering past her and pushing the door open. Big Jon looks up from his desk, which is really an old door balanced on two sawhorses. The doorknob is still jutting up from the surface.
“Hey, Alex,” Big Jon says with an uneasy grin. “So, I guess you found out about your ma’s garden. Don’t get into a fuss, okay? We really needed to make some changes around here.”
“I guess I’m just really disappointed,” I say. “I thought this place was something different.”
Big Jon runs his big hands through his wild mass of gray hair. “It is, honey. And you helped make it special, and so did your mom. But time moves on. Reggie’s always been… knowledgeable about this kind of thing. And for the first time in thirty years, we’ve got extra money. Hell, I can actually send funds to stop those bastards from destroying the rain forests!”
“Well, have you sent any money to charities? World Wildlife Fund, maybe? Greenpeace?”
Big Jon turns red. “Alex…”
“You’re really loving that new hot tub, though. Am I right?”
I look out the window at the lush green valley and shake my head. I thought this place was a real community. A family. But it turns out we were all just working to make money for Big Jon. “So, you know, thanks—really—for selling me out within five minutes of my leaving.”
“Alex, she paid us a lot of money to let you go, okay? I’ve got to uphold my end of the bargain.”
“What do you think my mother would have said?”
“You’ve got your grandmother, kid,” he says grimly. “We all love you, but the lady is rich as a sultan, and she seemed to be hell-bent on keeping you. Although, that might not be true anymore. I just talked to her a few minutes ago, and she told me it’s up to you whether you want