UnWholly (Unwind Dystology 2)

Risa takes a deep, shuddering breath. So Cam doesn’t know he’s alive. Does that mean that Proactive Citizenry doesn’t know either? It’s something she can’t speak of, can’t ask about, because it would provoke too many questions.

“Do you miss him?” Cam asks.

Now Risa can tell him the truth. “Yes, I do. Very much.”

It’s a long time before Cam speaks again. And when he does, he says, “I would never ask to take his place in your heart, but I hope there’s room for me in there as a friend.”

“I make no promises,” says Risa, trying to sound less vulnerable than she truly feels.

“Do you still think I’m ugly?” Cam asks her. “Do you still think I’m hideous?”

Risa wants to answer him truthfully, but it takes a while to find the right words. He takes her hesitation for an attempt to spare his feelings. He looks down. “I understand.”

“No,” Risa says, “I don’t think you’re hideous. It’s just that there’s no way to measure you. It’s like looking at a Picasso and trying to decide if the woman in the painting is ugly or beautiful. You don’t know, but you can’t stop looking.”

Cam smiles. “You see me as art. I like that.”

“Yeah, well, I never cared for Picasso.”

That makes Cam laugh, and Risa does too, in spite of herself.

- - -

The cliffside plantation estate has a rose garden filled with well-pruned hedges and exotic, aromatic flowers.

Risa, having been raised in the concrete confines of an inner-city state home, was never much of a garden girl, but once she was allowed access, she began coming out daily, if only to pretend that she isn’t a prisoner. The sensation of walking again is still new enough to make every step in the garden feel like a gift.

Today, however, Roberta is there, preparing some sort of miniature production. There is a small camera crew, and smack in the middle of the garden sits her old wheelchair. The sight of it brings back a flood of too many emotions to sort through right now.

“Would you mind telling me what this is all about?” Risa asks, not sure she really wants to know.

“You’ve been on your feet for almost a week now,” Roberta tells her. “It’s time to deliver on the first of the services you’ve agreed to perform.”

“Thank you for wording it just the right way to make me feel like I’m prostituting myself.”

For a moment Roberta is flustered, but she’s quick to recover her poise. “I meant it no such way, but you do have a knack of taking things and twisting them.” Then she hands Risa a sheet of paper. “Here are your lines. You’ll be recording a public service announcement.”

Risa has to laugh at that. “You’re putting me on TV?”

“And in print ads, and on the net. It’s the first of many plans we have for you.”

“Really, and what else do you have planned?”

Roberta smiles at her. “You’ll know when it’s your time to know.”

Risa reads over the single paragraph, and the words go straight to the pit of her stomach.

“If you’re unable to memorize them, we have cue cards prepared,” Roberta says.

Risa has to read the paragraph twice just to convince herself she’s actually seeing what she’s seeing. “No! I won’t say this, you can’t make me say this!” She crumples the page and throws it down.

Roberta calmly opens her folder and hands her another one. “You should know by now that there’s always another copy.”

Risa won’t take it. “How dare you make me say this?”

“Your histrionics are uncalled-for. There’s absolutely nothing in there that isn’t true.”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s not the words, it’s what’s implied!”