Chapter 4 Complaints

3:00 AM

Quincy used a copied key card and drove on a dark service road. He hid his car in the backyard of a stone cottage. The Planets Bliss, Thang, and Jecar could be seen in the midnight sky.

He stepped over an abandoned vegetable garden and used his key to open the steel and glass door. "Why do you need me here so early?"

Quincy's brother-in-law, Cavalier Low, fidgeted with his purple suit jacket. "Grandma is asleep. Could you look after Babette? I'll be back before school starts, I promise."

"Babette should be in bed." Quincy picked the kindergartner off the ground.

She glanced out the window and at the enormous estates surrounding the quaint cottage. "Mommy! Mommy!"

Cavalier Low trembled and walked towards the door. "Before I leave Quincy, I have terrible news. Yolanda wants to talk to you. The Mark Board has been a nightmare since they made her second in command."

Quincy rocked his niece as he talked. "It was always a nightmare. I'll meet her at Janice Kind's Potluck tonight, but not in private."

*

Complaint Call Center 5:20 AM

"No, it was a pleasure listening to your complaints, and yes, you can call me again. Ask for Zeda MonetGirl17534."

"Thank you. You're nice to talk to, and no one in my family listens."

Zeda tore off her phone headset, stretched, and her bones made popping sounds.

Women with Mark badges sewn into their arms moved in and out of their cubicles.

A dozen men and women with orange uniforms decorated with shiny platinum Mark Authority badges dragged a short woman from her seat.

Zeda wept in silence.

The largest authority squad member hit Zeda's plastic desk with his fists, rattling it.

"You work extra hours, so your bosses might have sympathy for you. It might work, but eat your breakfast and go home." He yanked her arm and forced her from her lemon-yellow chair.

Zeda said nothing, and she walked to the door, punched out, and rushed through the hall.

Her fingers touched a metal sign, Complaint Call Center's Executive Cafeteria, No Marked Women Allowed.

She peeked inside at men and women eating orange-chicken breakfast salads, oatmeal cookies, or diet bars from blue and white plates.

A man glared at her, but she smiled, waved, and blew kisses.

Zeda walked to a room with a signed door, Marked women's lunchroom, no chatting allowed. You're not friends. Sit on the floor and eat. You may text your family, but sending messages to each other is prohibited.

She entered a cement floor room with wall-to-wall vending machines. She paid for a spiced honey soda, drank it, and walked over to a pink and black vending machine with the words Mark Board Approved Beauty Soup.

Other Marked women sat on the floor, digging their spoons into their tin cups.

Zeda selected Beauty Beet Soup. Red sludge poured into her white cup. She finished her soup in silence.

Afterward, she texted her mom on an app called Butterfly Marked about sleeping over, and her mom reminded her about the meeting after the potluck.

Zeda tucked her phone away and strolled out of the building onto the busy sidewalk. Crowds split to avoid standing next to her.

A neon green dinner sign, Effie's Veggie Queen , Marked women not allowed, flickered in a pulsating rhythm.

She turned left at the post office and entered her mother's house through the servant's entrance.