The Leftovers

sit down and figure out the rent situation. In the meantime, you’re our guest, and everybody’s happy, okay?”
    “Sounds good.” Aimee smiled, as if this were the exact outcome she’d been hoping for. “I like it when everybody’s happy.”
    *   *   *
    LAURIE COULDN’T sleep. It was her third night at the Outpost, and the transition wasn’t going as smoothly as she’d hoped. Part of it was the strangeness, after twenty-three years of marriage and nine months of communal living, of once again having a room of her own. She just wasn’t accustomed to solitude anymore, the way that lying alone on a comfortable mattress could feel like tumbling endlessly through outer space.
    She missed Meg, too, missed their sleepy bedtime talks, the schoolgirl camaraderie of the Unburdening. Some nights they had stayed awake for hours, two soft voices bouncing back and forth, recounting their life stories in random installments. In the beginning, Laurie had made a good-faith effort to keep them focused on Meg’s training, to discourage idle gossip and nostalgic chatter, but the conversation always seemed to have a mind of its own. And the truth was, she enjoyed its meandering trajectory just as much as Meg did. She excused her weakness by reminding herself that it was a temporary condition, that Graduation Day would come soon enough, and she would, by necessity, have to resume her regimen of silence and self-discipline.
    And here she was, trying to do just that, but with Meg in the very next room, so close that not being able to talk to her seemed absurd and almost cruel. It was hard to be alone under any circumstances, but even harder when you knew you didn’t have to be, when all you had to do was throw off the blankets and tiptoe down the hall. Because she had no doubt—none at all—that Meg was wide awake at that very moment, thinking the exact same thoughts she was, resisting the exact same temptation.
    It had been simple to behave at the Compound, with so many people around, so many watchful eyes. At the Outpost there was no one to stop them from doing what they wanted, no one to even notice except Gus and Julian, and those guys were in no position to criticize. They were sharing the master suite on the ground floor—it had a king-size bed and a whirlpool tub in the adjoining bathroom—and Laurie sometimes thought she could hear their voices late at night, frail bubbles of speech drifting through the quiet house, popping just before they reached her ears.
    What are they talking about? she wondered. Are they talking about us?
    She wouldn’t have blamed them if they were. If she and Meg had been together, they would certainly have been talking about Gus and Julian. Not to complain—there wasn’t all that much to complain about—but just to swap impressions, the way you do when new people enter your life and you’re not quite sure what to make of them.
    They seemed like sweet guys, she thought, though maybe a bit self-involved and entitled. They could also be a little bossy, but Laurie suspected that this attitude was more a fluke of circumstance than a flaw in their characters. They’d been the sole occupants of Outpost 17 for almost a month before Laurie and Meg had arrived, and they’d naturally come to think of the place as their own and to assume that the newcomers would have to abide by the rules they’d established. As a matter of principle, Laurie didn’t think this was fair—the G.R. was based on equality, not seniority—but she figured she’d wait a little while before making a fuss about the decision-making process.
    Besides, it wasn’t like the house rules were particularly onerous. The only one that caused Laurie any personal inconvenience was the indoor smoking ban—she liked starting the day with a cigarette in bed—but she had no intention of trying to change it. The policy had been put in place to protect Gus, who suffered from a severe case of asthma. His breathing was often labored, and just the day before, he’d suffered a full-on attack right in the middle of dinner, leaping up from the table with a panicky expression, gulping and wheezing like he’d just been rescued from the bottom of a swimming pool. Julian ran to their room to retrieve an inhaler and rubbed Gus’s back for several minutes afterward until his respiration returned to something like normal. It had been terrifying to watch, and if Laurie had to smoke on the back patio to give him a little relief, that