by A N Sandra
“Just the really red ones, right?” she asked.
“Yea, forget the green ones, they’re just not going to make it.”
“Are those tarps going to save the squash?” Lourdes asked. “It’s still August, could they grow?”
“Maybe. I hope so, because we’ve eaten all of it that was ripe enough already.”
“What about the corn?”
“We’ve eaten what’s probably going to grow. Next year we can try to start it sooner. The only thing to worry about today is getting these tomatoes in. I’ve covered up the things I think can still grow if it warms up. The potatoes, carrots, onions, and beets can be picked any time.”
“Lourdes?” Helena realized something. “You know you’re wearing shorts, right?”
“It was really warm earlier,” Lourdes laughed. Her tanned legs were covered with goose bumps. “I’ll be okay. Can I give the goats and the chickens the green tomatoes? And the under ripe corn?”
“Will they eat it?” Helena asked.
“Oh, they eat anything,” Lourdes answered. “They’d even eat the socks Ray wore yesterday.”
“Mr. Todd is getting out the computers,” Ray said, running up to the garden. He looked puzzled that both girls were smirking at him.
“Did you remind him?” Helena laughed. “You know that means we’ll have to do school work now too. They won’t let us just play games all day.”
“It’ll be worth it!” Ray said. “Do you need some help?”
“Yes! Pick the really red tomatoes before the snow ruins them,” Helena said. “If you do that, I’ll go save some spinach.”
“Do you have to?” Ray asked.
“I’ll make sure not to fix it in anything you can recognize it in,” Helena grinned. It was easy to have goodwill toward Ray in the snow. The three of them worked together as if they had always been good friends. Helena wondered if just maybe there was a chance that Ray’s brain would recover from the damage done by overly permissive parenting and excessive video games.
The next day Helena was glad to find that more of the garden was still edible than she had thought. The unpicked green tomatoes that Lourdes had missed feeding to the goats were ruined. But most things from the lettuce family were still looking perky. The herbs were mostly fine also. The squashes, including the pumpkins, were still alive under the tarps Helena had placed over them the day before.
“You’ve done really well,” Christina Harris told Helena as she came out to look at the garden. “You kept it all summer and fixed us many healthy, delicious meals. I’m glad you’ll be living with me in the winter.”
“Is that a hint that I shouldn’t sleep outside anymore?” Helena asked. Her back was sore, and her hips hurt from sleeping on the cold ground. A teenager had no business feeling that old. “I’m ready. It was really uncomfortable out here last night.”
“Is there anything you need to make the loft more comfortable?”
“If it could be in Dad’s house and Ray and Lourdes were gone, it would be much better,” Helena said, honestly.
“I’m really sorry you don’t want to live with me,” Christina said. Her voice trembled, and her large brown eyes were wet, as though she might cry. “I understand you’re still angry with me, but it’s been so long…”
“You really don’t get it at all,” Helena sighed. She felt like she was talking to a kindergarten student. In matters of human relationships, she thought that might be Christina’s level anyway. “I’m not mad. I haven’t been mad for a really long time.”
“Then let’s try to work on our relationship over the winter,” Christina said. Her voice was trembling just a little.
“That’s what you don’t understand! We don’t have a relationship, and it’s too late. I don’t want one.” Helena looked at Christina, standing in the garden wearing work clothes and a stocking cap against the early morning cold, even though it was the last day of August. “I needed you when I was small, but I made do with Maria. I needed you to help me with school, but then Dad stepped up. I needed you to fix my mean girl problems in sixth grade, but Tawna did it and now she’s in our lives and it’s your fault. I don’t need you anymore.”
“Just because you don’t need me for those things doesn’t mean I can’t still be useful to you,” Christina’s voice really trembled.
“It does. I have to be a discerning person. I develop relationships with good people who can be counted on,” Helena said. “That’s just not you.”
Christina’s shoulders drooped, and she left the garden slowly.
“That was a test,” Helena said out loud to herself. “She couldn’t stay and see if I needed help. She had to run off and nurse her feelings. She hasn’t cared about my feelings for years.”
A large grey rabbit was lurking at the edge of the garden.
“I’ll make you the object of target practice if you even look at a cabbage!” Helena scolded him. “Go!”
The rabbit hopped off a small distance but looked back hopefully at the garden. Helena ran toward him and he bounded off.
“The Garden Warrior knows no mercy!” Helena yelled at the rabbit, right before she tripped over a hoe that had been left in the grass. “I know no mercy, and I don’t get any either,” she grumbled from the ground. She was surprised that she felt a little teary eyed, sitting on the ground with a bruised knee, wishing that her mother hadn’t walked away.
She got up to chase Christina down, determined to behave like an adult. The ground was bumpy and hard to run on, but Helena worked up a good sweat by the time she burst through the door to her mother’s tiny house.
“Mom?” Helena was horrified to see her mother clutching something with a look of concentration that was like no expression Helena had ever seen. “What are you doing?”
“I—” Christina was startled. She started to hide whatever she had been holding, but instead she put the object down on a small table in front of her.
Helena came all the way inside, shut the door behind her and reached to touch it, which was out of character for a girl who had been taught to be respectful. Somehow the small ivory box on the table seemed to glow, and somehow it seemed to want to be touched. Which made no sense at all.
“Oh…” a comforting sense of calm ran though Helena like a wonderful current of electricity. Then a gentle feeling of well-being washed over her. “What is this?”
“I have studied it as much as I can without taking it apart,” Christina said softly. “It is living DNA of an ancient animal.”
“Really?” Helena was not sure what answer she had expected, but that was certainly not it.
“I found it, in Tibet, as a graduate student. I knew it was wrong to bring it home with me… but it seemed to want to come…” Christina smiled a charming, puzzled smile. “It makes me calm, it helps me to think through problems… I used it to attract your father to me, twenty years ago…”
“Are you using it to help you know what to do about the Hollisters?”
“Just now I was using it to smooth my hurt feelings, but mostly I use it when I think problems through. It helped my whole lab become much more efficient when I took it to work… I want so much to fix everything… and I can’t think of answers even when my mind is calm…”
“Oh, Mom.” Helena felt a deep shift inside her consciousness. Somehow, she had been expecting her smart mother to fix all the problems of the world. It had been fun to garden and cook. To wistfully imagine Duane being interested in her. But she had thought this time was only a fun interlude. The newfound calm convinced her if her mother didn’t have an answer yet, she might not have one ever. Somehow the idea of the world slipping away didn’t destroy Helena, it just left a hole in her beliefs. The belief that her mother could fix things was gone, and Helena wasn’t sure she could fill the hole.
CHAPTER 16
August 8th, Manhattan, NY
I didn’t think anything would seem better in the morning,” Tilly said after stretching across Maddy’s bed to wake up. “A
nd it doesn’t”
“I never want to see Billy again, I never want to see that vile security guard again, and I never want to see Molly again.”
“If you die you can get that wish,” Tilly answered bitterly.
“I almost got raped, and I got Tasered last night,” Maddy groaned. “I also ended up drinking half a bottle of wine after drinking almost nothing for weeks, so dying doesn’t sound so bad.”
“That’s the one time you can joke about dying,” Tilly said, swallowing a lump in her throat. Her sleep had been fitful, her subconscious sending her images of dead scientists in laboratories and Hollister guards cutting throats without being checked by police. Dying seemed very real, even as daylight streamed into Maddy’s room around the blinds announcing a new day. “Not ever again.”
Maddy nodded at that.
“I’m going to take a shower and wash last night off me, as much as I can,” Maddy said.
“I’ll send to room service for coffee, if we haven’t been cut off from room service.” Tilly said.
While Maddy used the bathroom, it turned out that room service was quite happy to send up coffee and bagels. As soon as food was on its way Tilly suddenly felt ravenous and paced in front of the door, trying to clear her mind and think what to do, trying to distract herself until the food came.
Maddy came out of the bathroom at the same time the room service was delivered, causing Maddy to jump back into the bathroom to avoid being seen naked and giving Tilly a tiny laugh.
“I bet they see everything,” Tilly told her. “You naked was going to be a fond memory for that poor girl.”
“She isn’t a girl, she’s our age,” Maddy corrected.
“With everything we’ve been through, we’re older than her on the inside,” Tilly said.
“Hopefully everything we’ve been through doesn’t show up on our faces for a while at least,” Maddy joked, reaching for a bagel without even bothering to wrap in a towel or put a robe on.
“Too many of those will show up right away,” Tilly warned.
“I don’t care,” Maddy said. “Today I’m going to stress-eat.”
“That’s better than drinking away stress, cause we have got to figure out some stuff.”
It’s very hard to brainstorm when you are worried about talking out loud, but the stakes had become too high to chance being recorded. Both Maddy and Tilly were done, finished with the idea of trying to complete the show. Both understood that it was entirely possible, probable even, that they would meet with some sort of “accident” if they were caught trying to leave. They would film the next show—it was the next day anyway—then they would lie low in their rooms over the weekend. They planned to escape the following week when they would be taping on Monday morning. Monday mornings were busy for all of Molly’s staff. Maddy and Tilly would slip out the back door, into the alley behind Crackhouse, and make a break for it by running through the next building. There was a bank there Maddy had been through and would know how to navigate to withdraw cash from their accounts. They would take as much cash as they could out of every ATM they passed until Monday morning. Getting plenty of cash was important because they had less than a thousand dollars between them and getting away was going to be very hard.
“This is far from perfect,” Maddy whispered.
“It’s what we’ve got,” Tilly answered.
The worst part of the plan was that both of them were afraid to go near friends or relatives, because Molly would have someone checking on any close connections. They would go to Long Island where Maddy had a former boyfriend who might help them. Brice had hated social media of any kind and as far as Maddy knew there was no proof of their two-year long relationship anywhere online. It would be very hard for Molly to find a connection with him. It was the best-case scenario. If he no longer worked at his father’s marina, they would be in Long Island with no back up plan.
“Now that we have a plan can we have lunch?” Maddy whispered right in Tilly’s ear.
“Better just have salads,” Tilly said sadly. “We can save our calories for more wine.”
“A little wine might not hurt…”
“A little.”
Billy had the good grace to stay well clear of Maddy and Tilly the next morning as they all waited in the foyer for their limo ride to Crackhouse. Maddy and Tilly were both careful not to look at him, or Eric the security guard who had Tasered Maddy and threatened them both.
Eric didn’t have good grace, or good sense. He had his job because he liked to throw the Hollister weight around to bully people. He made sure to position himself next to Maddy and Tilly no matter how they moved to avoid him.
“Having a good morning, ladies?” he asked with a smirk as they sipped coffee on a tiny couch.
Both women pretended they didn’t hear him and he grinned ear to ear, looking like a puppet. For the first time both Tilly and Maddy really looked at him. Bulky and plain-faced, he was a schoolyard bully all grown up. He thought he was important but didn’t understand that throwing around someone else’s prestige doesn’t make a person important, it makes them a parasite.
“I’d love to call him out while everyone is right here,” Tilly spat out under her breath.
“He’ll take it out on you later,” Maddy fretted. “We still have all weekend here.”
“How could I forget?” Tilly said. “But I hate that man.”
The limos could be seen out the glass door of Hollister Manor and everyone stood up to go. The security guard ran to talk to the limo drivers and Maddy and Tilly ran back to the ATM to take cash out for Tuesday’s escape. First Maddy and then Tilly found their cards were declined at the ATM.
“Damn it!” Maddy fumed under her breath. “I had fourteen thousand dollars in that account!”
“I had nine,” Tilly said. “I don’t know what they heck is going on, but everyone knows the Hollisters run the Global Bank, and that every bank is just a branch of it no matter what anyone says.”
“Let’s get outside.”
The best time to be sure they were not being recorded was outside waiting to get in the limos, so everyone chatted fiercely. Billy looked like he might get in the same limo as Maddy and Tilly, which he had done most trips, but Tilly squinted at him, trying to look as deadly as possible, and he stepped away.
“Today’s theme is Delivery Mania!” Molly announced once everyone had their makeup on and was assembled around the Crackhouse chef’s table. “Front of the House and Back of the House will each have four hours, with an hour break in between shifts, and each team will compete to see who delivers the best meals the fastest.”
“We can’t win,” Tilly grumbled. “The Back of the House will make food faster than we do.”
“But they may not be able to make deliveries as fast as we can. We can organize that part better than they can,” Maddy said.
“I can’t believe I’m getting back into the competitive spirit again,” Tilly said under her breath.
“We better,” Maddy reminded her. “If we don’t win, one of us might be voted off our team and the other one would be really alone.”
Privately Tilly knew the unspoken part of that thought was that if one of them were voted off, both would be really alone. Even though she had been living in the city since design school, she was still in awe of how alone a person could be in the middle of so many people. One of them leaving would be an easy target for Molly. It would have to be both, or nothing.
“Team Captains, come for the coin toss to see who goes first!” Molly enthused after several minutes of elaborating on the rules of today’s competition.
Maddy and Jesus both stood up, looked at each other, and walked to the head of the table.
“You go,” Jesus said graciously.
“Heads,” Maddy smiled for the camera. She tried hard not to let herself get caught looking worried. Giving Molly what she wanted was never a good idea on principle.
“It’s tails,” Molly sighed with mock sympathy for Maddy. �
�Jesus, do you want to go first or second?”
“Second,” Jesus grinned.
“Bastard,” Annalise hissed to Ashley, who looked like she agreed. Whoever went first would get to make deliveries without rush hour traffic, but it would be harder for the Front of the House team to go first because they would have no time to strategize how to fix food the fastest way possible.
“Maddy and I are going to talk for a few minutes,” Ashley said calmly. “There isn’t going to be enough time to make our decisions by committee.”
Everyone nodded. Ashley had the most food experience on the team, Maddy was the organizer. Everyone else on the Front of the House Team sat quietly while Ashley and Maddy talked.
“We have our plan,” Maddy said. “Let’s kick ass!”
Everyone went to the kitchen. Ashley placed people where she wanted them while Maddy was left in charge of actual deliveries. Each team would have three cars and drivers, but a team member would have to go actually hand food to customers and receive payment for the food. They had one hour to prep food and get ready for the deliveries that people would call in.
“You’re a rockstar!” Ashley marveled as Tilly shoved tomatoes through the slicer at great speed. While complimenting Tilly, Ashley was making inserts of pickles, splashing pickle juice across the work table as she raced to her next task.
“God! Your bacon is a mess!” Ashley yelled at Billy as she looked toward the grill. “You should have laid it out in rows the way I told you! Now some is going to burn because you won’t be able to turn it fast enough!”
As if to illustrate her point, Billy tried to turn some at that moment and grease flew everywhere.
“Oh, here, give me that!” Ashley put down the inserts for the sandwich bar she had been about to put onions in and pushed Billy out of the way, grabbing the spatula from his hand. Deftly, she rearranged the bacon on the grill into neat rows and swept a wave of bacon grease into the grease trap. “Watch it, Billy,” Ashley warned. “Pull it up the second it gets done.
