Amnesia Moon by Jonathan Lethem Page A

boys”—Ray and Dave stopped and waved from the stairs—“and see you, cousin.” He leaned on
cousin
too hard. “You decide to stick around. I’ll get you all signed up and stuff. And have Edie here tell you about bad luck. She knows all about that.”
    â€œBad luck?” said Chaos.
    â€œYeah. Edie’s sort of an expert in that department. Tell the truth, when I first came in, I thought you might be another manifestation. You know, taking in some drifter, lying to cover for him—another one of her wild swerves off the straight and narrow. Good to know you’re actually family . . .”
    Melinda came down the stairs, and Cooley’s voice trailed away to a whistle. “Hello. You didn’t say you had a traveling partner.”
    Melinda stopped on the bottom step and glared.
    â€œThat’s quite a fur coat you’ve got there, young lady—”
    â€œGo, Ian.” Edie moved towards him, actually balling her fists, thinking she would have to drive him out.
    â€œRight,” he said, backpedaling. “Later. Stay in touch, Edie. And out of trouble.” He turned and walked out, across the porch, and back to his car.
    Edie discovered she’d been holding her breath.
    â€œI’m sorry,” Chaos said. “We’ll go . . .”
    â€œNo,” she said. “Now you’d better stay, at least for a night.” She realized, incongruously, that she was glad; she wanted to know more about them. “If you just walk out of here, he’ll have you followed. Oh, Jesus. We’ll have to find you a car.”
    â€œThat doesn’t seem like a problem,” he said. “They’re pretty much everywhere.”
    â€œYou can’t just take a car,” she said. “Not around here. They belong to people. I’ll have to drive you out of town, I guess. Tomorrow.”
    â€œWhat did he mean about bad luck?”
    â€œIt’s nothing,” she said. “I didn’t do well on the test, that’s all. It can’t be proved. They don’t really have any proof that the results mean anything at all—”
    â€œOkay,” he said. “It’s not important to me.”
    Melinda came into the room, dressed in Edie’s clothes.
Her fur looked several shades lighter now that it was dean. She looked up at Edie and Chaos in turn, smiled shyly, and flopped on the couch.
    â€œI’ll give you one of the rooms upstairs,” said Edie. “The boys can have the other bedroom. I’ll sleep down here tonight.”
    She felt suddenly exhausted by the prospect of protecting these hopeless people against Cooley and the government and everyone out there writing tickets and reporting infractions. She would have to keep them in her sight and off the streets. They didn’t know how to act. They didn’t know how the world worked. And they didn’t know how much she herself teetered on the edge of disaster; they’d picked the wrong person as their protector.
    No, they had to be out of the house in the morning, one way or the other. She’d be lucky not to get in trouble for letting them stay. And she was never lucky.
    The boys came rushing downstairs and switched the television back on. They squirmed up onto the couch on either side of Melinda. “Wanna watch Moving Day?” asked Ray.
    The girl said, “Sure. What’s Moving Day?”
    â€œIt’s a show,” said Ray. “Like today, when everybody has to move, except it’s about how all the government stars change houses; it’s different from the way we do it.”
    â€œThey fight,” said Dave.
    â€œIt’s like adventures,” said Ray. “Because the bad guys try to keep the houses. Because where the government stars live is really nice.”
    â€œGovernment stars?” said Chaos.
    â€œLike movie stars,” said Edie. “It’s not real. I mean, they’re really