57.

Audrey wasn’t tough to find. She had arrived downtown. Main Street was closed. A circumventive detour connected the east and west sides of the city. Traffic was heavy everywhere, and frequent blocked lanes exacerbated the problem. Construction workers held STOP and SLOW signs, allowing only one stream at a time to pass. New power lines, new street signs, new bus stops, new homes and buildings.

Drivers were ornery. They mouthed obscenities, tapped the roofs of their cars, threw up their hands, punched their steering wheels.

As McKenna was pushed along with the flow, not knowing where to stop, the radio DJ began talking. She turned up the volume.

“If you are tired of Chopin, then by all means, drop by the studio and donate any of your classical records or CDs. Anything! And by ‘studio,’ I refer of course to the reconstructed basement of my parents’ new-but-not-new house, our temporary WMUK base of operations. Official word, again, from the powers-that-be, is that it was administrative ‘oversight’ not to preorder even one of the records Audrey was planning on turning into dinner . . . Whew. But bygones and all that. Here we are. One hundred watts of power from a five-hundred dollar transmitter kit, generously donated by the fine folks at McDonald’s, where good food equals good times. I’m playing selections from Chopin’s Greatest Hits if you missed the first eleven times I’ve pointed this out. This one’s for you, Audrey A big fat thank you, Audrey! Good luck eating the Radisson this weekend. Why the hell not. And bite me, FCC. This is your campus public radio, WMUK.”

McKenna found a parking place on a residential side street. She walked to Rose Street and followed it four blocks north. Downtown Kalamazoo looked like a war zone. Fire trucks and ambulances. Vacant lots gutted by excavators. Lots planed by graders. Herds of yellow machines roaming the streets like dinosaurs. Pile drivers, front loaders, cement mixers. Thick-armed men unloading bricks from flatbeds. Construction workers in orange vests smoking on the curbs, dozing off, leaning on their shovels. Towering mounds of dirt everywhere. Jackhammers clanking, ripping through pavement. Cops posted on every corner, hurrying the occasional dazed citizen around open sewers and pyramids of aluminum pipes. A haze of dust stung McKenna’s eyes and coated her tongue.

“You’ll need one of these, ma’am before you go any farther,” a woman said. She stuck a filter mask into McKenna’s hand. Mc-Kenna strapped it on and took a dozen steps before she realized that the woman had been a nurse.

McKenna arrived at the corner of Rose and South. The traffic light wasn’t functioning, and no cars passed along the roads, but she stopped anyway. She recognized Bronson Park on her left. Grandma Pencil had started the war there. McKenna felt a dull ache through her body, like the beginning of a fever. This place, that moment, had made her what she was today. Turning to her right, she expected to see the library. Nothing. Years ago, they’d vacationed along this road. Three pairs of Mapeses. Mom and Dad holding hands. Mom two years from dead. There should have been a row of brick buildings on both sides of South Street—a pastry shop, a dentist office, an eyeglasses store, a coffee shop, a bar.

But now, shaved scalps. That’s what was left. Two rows of shaved scalps, each one cordoned off by yellow tape. Lonely, tidy piles of swept rubble all that remained of the businesses.

McKenna’s view extended two blocks, all the way to the walking mall, where the buildings remained intact but no one walked. The entrance to South Street was blocked by orange barrels and manned by a pair of police officers. When they saw McKenna gawking, one of them spanked the air, keep it moving.

The next intersection was Main Street, which was also barricaded and could not be crossed. The end of the line. One block east, the Radisson hotel—what was left of it—stood in plain sight. Once the tallest building in the city, it was now half its original size. The top had been sheared off at the fifth floor, jagged like a broken bottle.

“Are you lost?” someone asked.

It was another police officer. Even partially hidden behind a filter mask, he was quite handsome. His eyes were the same soothing brown as the Hershey bar McKenna had just brought back into her mouth for the seventh time. Wavy hair, lightly dusted. Kind wrinkles encircling his eyes.

And what if she answered, “Yes, Officer Mitch. I am lost.”? What then? Would a dimple form on his cheek? Would his eyes sparkle? Would he lift and carry her, like Toby used to carry Audrey? Would he whisk McKenna past the barricades to the scarlet horizon, into a new life? Would he teach her, at last, how to be a woman?

“This is a restricted area,” he said. “Want me to call you a cab?”

“My sister is eating your city,” McKenna answered. “And I need to speak with her.”

Two hours later, she was issued a hard hat and a pair of earplugs and escorted to the Radisson.

They had scrutinized her driver’s license, then contacted the police chief, who contacted the Executive Director of The Mapes Initiative, who contacted Audrey’s legal representatives, who contacted Mayor Bowman, who contacted the Executive Director of The Mapes Initiative, who contacted the police chief, who contacted the foreman of the Zone 12 construction team, who sent an envoy in a telehandler to drive McKenna to the hotel.

“You’re really her sister, huh?” the envoy said. “Let me guess—older? You don’t look like her.” He was barely more than a kid. Lean and rangy, with unconvincing stubble. Wearing a sleeveless orange vest and a hard hat. His right shoulder sported a black tattoo of Audrey, a bust. She looked like a Hollywood starlet, with pouty lips, heartbreaking lashes, flowing locks.

“You’re a fan?” McKenna asked.

“Me personally, hell yes,” he said. “Don’t have to worry about college for my boy. Last two years there’s been more work than I can handle. I don’t see the family much, but I’ve saved a buttload, ma’am. A buttload.”

“Do most people feel like you?”

“Sure,” he said. “Why not?” He coughed, and then hacked a ball of phlegm out his window. “I hear griping, definitely. More lately. I think people are tired of it. Some ain’t been paid in a while, either.”

“I thought she saved Kalamazoo. That’s what the news said.”

“I don’t know about that. Tons of money from all the merch, that’s for sure. Went into the rebuilding, right into our pockets. I guess it saved us for a while. I’m going to drop you off right up there.”

“So what changed?”

He stopped the vehicle. “Who knows? I mean, she has been breaking the rules lately.”

“What rules?”

“She’s supposed to go in order, right? They made a whole plan for her to follow.” He drew a circle in the air with his finger. “Start on the outskirts, work her way in, a spiral. That way, everyone knows when she’s coming. Companies have their ‘Audrey’s At the Door’ shindig, pack up the personals, get out nice and calm. She’s also supposed to eat at night. This wig shop down that way?” He pointed vaguely. “Don’t tell anyone about this—they’re trying to keep it hush-hush—but Audrey’s not supposed to touch anything on the mall until next week. On Wednesday, she comes charging in at nine in the morning, starts chewing. All the wigs, the mannequins. Freaked the shit out of the customers. Owner tried to shoo her out with a broom. She ate the broom, almost took off the guy’s hand.”

“Go figure.”

“Talk to that gentleman over there,” the kid said. “He’ll take you to Audrey.”

“Thanks for your help.” McKenna stepped out of the telehandler. Before she closed the door, the kid leaned toward her.

“Oh, and tell her ‘Hi’ from Chet,” he said, winking.