5. Prudence
Prudence
The floor beneath my bare feet is cold and slick as polished stone. Mr. O’Rourke leads me through glass doors into a building that reaches into the sky.
A man in a pressed uniform nods. “Mr. O’Rourke.”
“Thomas.” Mr. O’Rourke’s hand hovers near the small of my back without touching. “This is my wife, Prudence.”
As Thomas’s gaze travels from my dirty bare feet to my torn dress held together with a belt, not a single muscle in his face moves. “Ma’am. A pleasure.”
No one has called me ma’am before. At the Enclave, I am girl, or Sister Prudence.
Mr. O’Rourke guides me toward a wall of polished metal doors. He presses a button, and one of the doors slides open with a chime, revealing a small box-like room with mirrored walls.
“It’s an elevator,” he says. “It will carry us up to my floor. Step inside.”
When I enter, the mirrored walls throw my reflection back at me from every angle, and the sight is jarring—I am gaunt, my hair is stringy, and my face has streaks of dirt and tears. I look away.
The doors close, and my stomach drops so fast I grab the metal railing bolted to the wall. The entire room lifts.
My knees buckle, and a cry escapes me—a small, strangled sound I cannot swallow in time.
“It’s okay. We’re moving upward, propelled by a pulley system.” Mr. O’Rourke’s voice does not rush. He speaks the way a person speaks to a spooked animal—measured, deliberate. “Thirty-two floors. It takes about forty seconds.”
Thirty-two floors. I keep hold of the railing and watch as numbers over the door light up. Each one glows white, then dims, then the next one glows. Seven. Eight. Nine.
My pulse hammers, but my grip loosens by a fraction with each passing number. I am panicked but curious.
Twenty-nine. Thirty. Thirty-one.
The doors slide open to reveal a space that takes my breath away.
Mr. O’Rourke steps out, but I stay where I am. He turns, holding the door with one hand, waiting. My bare feet are still on the metal lip of the box.
“Prudence.”
His voice is soft. He says my name carefully.
I step across.
My eyes are drawn to a wall of glass. An entire wall. From floor to ceiling. Beyond the glass, the city spreads out below us. We are so high in the sky, I cannot make sense of it. Gray towers. Silver towers. A blue ribbon of water in the far distance, flashing where the sun catches it.
We are up in the heavens.
My stomach spins and swirls.
“You can breathe,” Mr. O’Rourke says.
I cannot.
I turn for the door behind me, but the door has already slid shut.
“Prudence, look at me.”
My eyes flit to him. He has not moved. His eyes are still on me with an intensity that makes my skin tingle.
“You’re safe here,” he says. “Nothing in this room will harm you. The glass is thick. The floor is solid. Nothing will fall. Okay?”
I nod. Nodding is all I seem to know how to do right now and I feel stupid.
“Come, sit.”
He walks to a long, low piece of furniture covered in cream-colored fabric and gestures to it. I know what it is. It’s a couch. I have never sat on one. The pews in the chapel are wood, the benches in the dining hall are wood, and my mat in the dormitory is on the floor.
I cross to it, not really sure how to sit on it, so I perch at the very edge, my knees together, my bare feet flat, and my hands clasped in my lap.
He sits in an armchair across from me with a low table between us.
“I need to make a call,” he says. “You…uh… I need to get you some clothes. Is that alright?”
“Yes.” I’m not sure why he’s asking me if it’s alright.
He pulls a slim device from his pocket. He taps the device and looks down at it. A moment later, a voice fills the air.
“Ronan, darling! To what do I owe the enormous pleasure?”
I gasp. A face has appeared on the device. His mouth is moving. His eyes are blinking.
Mr. O’Rourke glances up. Whatever he sees on my face makes him smile. Not a cold smile. A warm one. The first smile I have seen from him.
“Nicholas, hang on.” He lowers the phone. “Come here, sweetheart.”
I go to him. He holds out the device, and I see the man’s face again. I see now that there are other things around him—a shelf, a lamp, a painting on a wall.
“He lives in another unit in this building,” Mr. O’Rourke says. “The phone lets us see him while we talk to him. It’s called FaceTime.”
“Ronan.” The man leans forward. “Who is this quaint little creature standing behind you looking at me as though I might crawl out of this phone and gobble her up?”
“Nicholas, meet Prudence, my….uh…wife.”
The man gasps as though he is dying. “No! You sneaky Gaelic devil you. You’ve taken a wife?”
Mr. O’Rourke does not respond to Nicholas’s question. Instead, he speaks to me. “Prudence, this is Nicholas. He’s my stylist.” Ronan angles the device toward me. “He can see you and hear you, and you can see and hear him. It’s a video call. Technology, not magic.”
“Oh, it’s so lovely to meet you, Prudence.”
My heart thumps. He is speaking to me. I lean forward. He has dark skin, sharp cheekbones, and eyes colored with something that makes them dramatic and bright. He wears a shirt in a shade of pink as bright as a rose petal. I have never seen that color worn by a man—I have never seen it on anyone.
“Say hello,” Mr. O’Rourke says.
“Hello,” I whisper.
“Oh, hello, you precious darling creature. I am going to eat you alive,” Nicholas says. “In the best possible way.” He looks at me as though studying my face. “Gorgeous bone structure. Gorgeous. But what on God’s green earth are you wearing? Ronan, what do we have going on here?”
“It’s a complicated situation,” Ronan says. “I need you here asap. She’s going to need everything.”
“Everything?” Nicholas repeats. A beat. “Everything everything?”
“Everything.”
“I’m already on the way.” The image bounces and tilts as he moves. “Give me thirty minutes.”
The screen goes dark.
I stare at the device in Mr. O’Rourke’s hand.
One corner of his mouth lifts. “It’s a cellphone. Among other things, it can send pictures and sound through the air so we can talk face to face even when we’re far apart.”
Pictures and sound through the air. I repeat the idea to myself, turning it over.
He angles the device toward me and taps it. My own face appears—moving, alive, blinking when I blink. I jerk backward, then lean closer. My reflection on the screen tilts her head when I tilt mine. I lift my hand, and she lifts hers. A laugh bubbles up from somewhere deep in my chest.
“I’ll get you your own cellphone tomorrow,” he says.
I lift my head. “My own?”
“Your own.”
My very own cellphone device that captures pictures and sends them through the air. The idea is so enormous I can barely absorb it.
“Oh, thank you, Mr. O’Rourke. Thank you!”
The smile on his face falls, and I fear I have displeased him, although I do not know how.
“Call me Ronan. My name is Ronan.”
I nod, but stare at my feet.
Just then, a chime sounds, and the man from the cellphone device—Nicholas—sweeps into the room with three large zippered parcels over his shoulder, a tape measure around his neck, and a smile so enormous his white teeth gleam.
“Oh,” he breathes, looking at me. “Oh, darling. Ronan, you neanderthal, why is she in—what is this, sackcloth? Is she being punished by pilgrims? Come here, darling, come into the light.”
I look at Mr.—I mean, Ronan.
Ronan shrugs. “He’s harmless.”
Nicholas sets his bags down and crosses to me with his hands out, palms up, slow as a person approaching a deer. My shoulders rise.
“Only looking, darling. Only looking. May I?” He holds up the tape measure.
I glance at Ronan. Ronan nods.
“Yes,” I say.
Nicholas’s smile seems to reach all the way up into the corners of his eyes.
“Lift your arms a little. Like a bird about to fly. That’s it, darling girl.”
He measures. Around my ribs. Around my hips. The length from my shoulder to my wrist. He works fast, without fuss, and narrates as he goes.
“Waist is unfairly small. Ronan, does she eat? Bust is a dream. Shoulders are like a Degas dancer. Inseam—”
He looks up. “Darling. Are you more comfortable in denim jeans or lightweight trousers?”
“I…I have never worn such things. Trousers,” I clarify.
Nicholas looks up as though I have said something that alarms him. “Not pants? Not jeans? Not leggings?”
“Shifts,” I say. “But I was allowed three of them. One for weekdays. One for Sabbath. One for when the others are being washed.”
Nicholas straightens, walks to the window, and presses his forehead against the glass. His shoulders rise and fall once.
When he turns back, his face does something complicated. Then the enormous smile returns, softer now.
“Right,” he says. “So. We need…” He begins to count on his fingers.
“Underthings. Proper bras. Sleep sets. Lounge sets. Denim, in three washes. Tees. Sweaters—cashmere and cotton. Blouses. Dresses—day, cocktail, two evening gowns for when your husband inevitably drags you to a gala. Boots. Flats. Heels, one modest pair, one less modest. A coat. A proper coat, not a jacket. A scarf. Gloves. A handbag for day, a clutch for night, a tote for when you decide you have hobbies. Loungewear for the weekends.”
I stare at him. My mouth has fallen open.
“Oh,” he adds, “and lingerie.” He winks at me. I have never been winked at. I do not know what to do with my face in response.
“I’m going to send over essentials tonight. Basics to get you through the next day or two. Then I’m spending the rest of this week finding you the most beautiful clothes you’ve ever seen—silks, satins, laces—in colors you didn’t know existed.”
He gathers his things, steps closer, gives me a warm squeeze of both my hands, and says, “You’re going to be pampered, darling.”
Then he is gone and I stand in the middle of the room with my hands still held out where he left them.
“Is he real,” I say, mostly to myself.
Ronan laughs a short, surprised laugh. “I’m afraid so.”
After he’s gone, Ronan walks me through the penthouse.
He shows me the kitchen, points to a silver box on the wall and tells me it is a refrigerator, then opens it so cold air hits my face.
He shows me the light switches, and lets me press one, and I watch the ceiling light go on and off and on and off until I understand, and then I keep pressing for three more clicks while the small miracle of it continues to astonish me.
He shows me a round dial beside a doorway and tells me it is a thermostat and that I can make the room warmer or cooler by turning it.
I can make a room warmer or cooler.
Ronan then leads me down a hallway and opens a door. Inside is a beautiful bedroom. There’s a bed with a pale blue cover, a small table beside it, and a window with the same impossible view beyond it.
“This is your room,” he says. “You can shower. There’s a bathroom through that door—I’ll show you how the shower works. Towels are on the rack. Take your time.”
My room. My room, not our room?
A realization creeps in and wraps itself around me.
He is talking, but I am not listening.
“My room?” I hear myself say aloud. “Not your room?”
He pauses. “My bedroom is just down the hall.”
Down the hall. A husband and wife share a bed on their wedding night. That is the rule. That is scripture. A man who refuses to share a bed with his wife finds her unworthy. Repulsive, unclean.
I look at the bed again. My throat tightens and tears fill my eyes. I have displeased my husband. I have displeased him already, and I do not know how.
“Prudence?” He is watching me. “Are you alright?”
I lift my head slightly and stare at his chest, blurred through my tears.
“What have I done to displease you that you will not share a marital bed with me?”