The Atmospherians by Alex McElroy (digital ebook reader txt) 📕

orphaned. I have seen the repressed reveal their innermost selves to strangers. I have seen men become better men: patient and caring and whole. I watched myself mature into a better woman, wiser, more forgiving and honest. Where did this happen?” Nobody released a breath. I floated inside their anticipation like an astronaut. “Not anywhere close to here. It happened on an abandoned campsite in rural New Jersey. The Atmosphere. A place far too good for any of you.”

The crowd stomped and whistled and wept. Fists pumped. Hats were thrown in the air. My name was chanted. Roger pulled me in for a side hug. “You gotta love her,” he said.

I hurried out of the ballroom. Investors gave me thumbs-up as I passed. Some leaned out of their chairs to stretch for high fives, and, unthinkingly, I tapped my hand against theirs.

Even in my apartment, I could hear the audience cheering. I vomited in the kitchen sink, longing for every atom inside me to dissolve into nothing.

Dyson had left me a voicemail during the speech. I listened to it on speaker as I rinsed out my mouth. His voice was a fractured whisper:

Life must be amazing at DAM. Things are different here. The nights are sour. I’ve tried something new in the days—something I’ve always wanted to try. But the men haven’t adjusted. Randy says hi. Gerry says hi. The doctor says hi. Everyone says it. You know I didn’t want you to leave, but I understood. But now, we need you to return. I’m sorry. I know you won’t and you can’t. You shouldn’t. I don’t expect you to return. Why should you return? But you were this place. I mean we were this place. Mostly it was you. It was us. And I miss having our—

A loud crack interrupted him. Fuck, he said. Twigs snapped as he sprinted through the woods, the phone full of his breathing. The voicemail ended.

Champagne and adrenaline swelled my heart with sentimentality. The pleading need in his voice made me want to return to him. I wanted what I always wanted from Dyson: for him to need me to save him, to show him how to live. Dyson never wanted to hurt me—unlike Cassandra. I knew he hadn’t wanted to hurt Peter, either. Dyson wasn’t a killer. He wasn’t cruel. He was beleaguered by grief and incompetence—and he needed me. More than Roger needed me, more than Cassandra, more than Blake, more than my clients ever had.

I loaded clothes and soaps into a suitcase. The closest exit was on the other side of the ballroom. Applause reverberated through the building as I dragged my suitcase through the halls. Curious, I peeked inside the ballroom. The guests were watching Mistake Tent recordings.

I continued to the kitchen. Cater-waiters huddled around a tub of bussed plates stuffing leftovers into their pockets and aprons and mouths.

“We’re allowed to do this,” said a redheaded woman. Sauce spotted her chin.

“What size do you wear?” I asked her.

“If you’re calling me fat,” she said, “I’m no bigger than you.”

“I’ve got a suitcase full of designer clothes for you if you drive me to the airport.”

“Prove it,” she said.

I unzipped my suitcase. She picked through the dresses, nodded approval. “You’re the woman from the video,” she said.

“Does that mean you won’t drive me?” I asked.

“That means we better go out the back,” she said. And I followed her.

thirty-five

GROCERIES WERE STACKED across the back seat of Dyson’s car. He quivered with nervous energy, rapping the wheel and grimacing. Decades of stress had seized his face since I’d last seen him: gray hairs weaved through his eyebrows, and his neck was chicken-like, wrinkled.

The past week had made claims to my youth and dignity. I spent a significant chunk of the flight—which I’d charged to a credit card Roger provided—stretching my face in the bathroom, fending off impatient knocks by responding, I’m shitting. My cheeks always appeared greasy and crinkled in those mirrors, a prank of the light, but they were even greasier, even more crinkled, on this trip. Blackheads peppered my nose; bumpy irritations clustered under my eyes. I plucked gray hairs from my scalp. I blamed Roger for these developments. Then I blamed grief. Finally: Dyson. I remained in the bathroom until the flight attendants forced me out for landing.

“How was your… DAM?” Dyson asked in the car.

“Thank you for picking me up,” I said, diplomatic and stern. I wished I could be grateful for Dyson, but that seemed impossible now. “I’m not here because I want to be here.”

“I read an article about it,” he said. “Something about your speech making investors drop out. They don’t want to be associated with DAM. They’re delaying the launch. They might never launch. What the hell did you say to them?”

“Please don’t pretend you haven’t already watched it.”

“I understand completely if you don’t want to talk,” he said. “I couldn’t understand more. And I respect that. I know you need privacy. I know you’re furious at me. You have every right to be angry. You need your silence. I get it. But there are some things—since you’re coming back—some things I should warn you about.”

I drooped my head into the seat belt as I listened along.

The men had become paranoid after the other men’s deaths, and my sudden absence only made them angrier, more suspicious. One evening, as Dyson prepared the Family Dinner, the men had charged through the fence and raided the pantry. They ate together—excluding Dyson—in one of the sheds. No one Emptied Out. They dug up Peter’s vegetable garden the following morning—for sport, it seemed, just to cause trouble—and set fire to three of the sheds before slashing the bus tires, including the spares. Dyson had hidden in the cabin the last three days, living off aging cabbage-and-vinegar slaw and wafers, and Barney’s company.

Now the scent of charred wood seeped through the windows as we entered into camp. Flames engulfed a fourth shed, splashing light over the