Get in Trouble: Stories (22 page)

is
’s
younger sister. They only broke ground on
’s
pyramid last summer. Upper management teams from her father’s company came out to lay the first course of stones. A team-building exercise. Usually it’s lifers from the supermax prison out in Pelican Bay. Once they get to work, they mostly look the same, lifers and upper management. It’s hard work. We like to go out and watch.

Every once in a while a consulting archaeologist or an architect will come over and try to make conversation. They think we want context.

They talk about grave goods, about how one day future archaeologists will know what life was like because some rich girls decided they wanted to build their own pyramids.

We think that’s funny.

They like to complain about the climate. Apparently it isn’t ideal. “Of course, they may not be standing give or take a couple of hundred years. Once you factor in geological events. Earthquakes. There’s the geopolitical dimension. There’s grave robbers.”

They go on and on about the cunning of grave robbers.

We get them drunk. We ask them about the curse of the mummies just to see them get worked up. We ask them if they aren’t worried about the Olds. We ask what used to happen to the men who built the pyramids in Egypt. Didn’t they used to disappear? we ask. Just to make sure nobody knew where the good stuff was buried? We say there are one or two members of the consulting team who worked on
’s
pyramid that we were friendly with. We mention we haven’t been able to get hold of them in a while, not since the pyramid was finished.

They were up on the unfinished outer wall of
’s
pyramid. I guess they’d been up there all night. Talking. Making love. Making plans.

They didn’t see me. Invisible, that’s what I am. I had my phone. I filmed them until my phone ran out of memory. There was a unicorn down in the meadow by a pyramid.
’s
pyramid. Two impossible things. Three things that shouldn’t exist. Four.

That was when I gave up on becoming someone new, the running, the kale, the whole thing. That was when I gave up on becoming the new me. Somebody already had that job. Somebody already had the only thing I wanted.

“Give me the code.” I say it over and over again. I don’t know how long it’s been.
’s
arm is green and black and all blown up like a party balloon. I tried sucking out the poison. Maybe that did some good. Maybe I didn’t think of it soon enough. My lips are a little tingly. A little numb.

“
?”
says. “I don’t want to die.”

“You aren’t going to die,” I say. “Give me the code. Let me save you.”

“I don’t want them to die,”
says. “If I give you the code, you’ll do it. And I’ll die down here by myself.”

“You’re not going to die,” I say. I stroke her cheek. “I’m not going to kill anyone.”

After a while she says, “Okay.” Then she tells me the code. Maybe it’s a string of numbers that means something to her. More likely it’s random. I told you she was smarter than me.

I repeat the code back to her and she nods. I’ve covered her up with a shawl, because she’s so cold. I lay her head down on a pillow, brush her hair back.

She says, “You loved her better than you loved me. It isn’t fair. Nobody ever loved me best.”

“What makes you think I loved her?” I say. “You think this was all about love? Really,
? This was just me being dumb again. And you, saving the day.”