by Ginger Booth
“Oh, yeah! Be right back!”
By 7 a.m., we were on the interstate, and the sun was barely up from the horizon, on a typical clammy November day. I was relieved that we were both the sort to keep to the schedule instead of complicating an ‘early start’ with last-minute errands. The latest-model Tesla sedan didn’t require much driving, but Adam enjoyed himself doing it.
I was afraid the 6 hour drive up to Burlington would drag, but for one thing, we made it in 4 hours. The roads were near empty. The quiet and smoothness of the Tesla’s ride obscured how fast he drove. But mostly, we found plenty to talk about to pass the time.
Thanksgiving, of course, was covered in detail. Adam’s family ‘compound’ – his word – was down in Greenwich, one of the diamonds in Connecticut’s Gold Coast. His stepmother laid on a full traditional Thanksgiving spread for about 15. She and her daughter, Adam’s half-sister, were gourmet cooks. Adam and his older brother and father concentrated on traditional football, both on TV and tossing a ball outside with nephews and nieces and cousins. Other than Thanksgiving Day, none of the three men had any interest whatsoever in football. Besides the unfamiliar sheer wealth involved, it sounded all-American from a bygone era.
My dinner had been an eco-vegan feast for about a dozen of Mangal’s Jain community of assorted ages. Aside from my candied yams and a disappointing vegan pumpkin pie, the traditional food was Indian, and unbearably spicy. You know it’s hot when a dish of white potatoes is deep red and no tomatoes were involved. I had fun romping on the floor with Mangal’s preschoolers, aged 2 and 4. And I enjoyed relaxing and talking with the older Jain neighbors. In my family, you could cut the judgmentalism with a knife. Jains were pacifists in every way, and sought not to judge or hold an opinion too strongly. I don’t know that I could live that way, but it’s ever so pleasant to visit and be included.
The familiar New England landscape rolled by outside the Tesla. From the highway I saw trees and rolling hills, gradually shifting into higher hills and mountains, from deciduous to evergreen trees, crop fields all sleeping. From that remove you don’t see frightened people and their thwarted works. Unlike the West, our landscape still sustained us. It was easy to put Wednesday’s research behind me with the miles.
“So what are you shopping for?” Adam inquired, as we hit the outskirts of greater Burlington.
“Cheddar, of course. We need more cow dairies in Connecticut. Goat cheese just isn’t the same.”
Adam laughed. “Agreed.”
I continued itemizing. “The textile mills are back up and running in Winooski, so I wanted a nice bolt of cloth.”
Adam looked puzzled. “Your ark will supply things like that.”
“Eventually, probably,” I agreed. “Actually, I have no idea what the UNC ark will provide. They haven’t really told us about that.”
“Oh.”
Sometimes an ‘oh’ speaks volumes. In response to my continued gaze, he went on, “It’s just… getting a bit late. For that. I’m sorry. I… shouldn’t talk about it. What else are you buying?”
“A Tesla battery.”
He laughed out loud. “Why?” He’d seen my old boxy gasoline car in the driveway.
“Power storage. To run the refrigerator and furnace and recharge my computer when the power is out. Or, store renewable power.”
“OK. But why a Tesla battery?”
“Because I already have one. This is my second, and I don’t want to re-do all the wiring for a different kind of battery. So I wanted one more of the same.” I glanced at him sideways to see if he’d make fun of me for it.
He just nodded, a bit poignantly I felt. “Makes sense. You know… I’ll need to board my ark kinda early. For shake-down. When I go, you can have my spare battery. For the car.”
“I never knew Tesla cars came with spare batteries.”
“They don’t.” He smiled crookedly. “Everybody hoards something.”
“A fellow battery-hoarder! And what else do you hoard, Adam Lacey?”
“Oh, look! There’s our B&B!”
The B&B was still all the way up the block. “That’s not fair. You got three out of me – cool fabric, cheddar cheese, and batteries.”
“Yes, but we need to recharge the battery.”
“Ah, yes, that. Let’s do that thing.” Part of the battery hoarding complex was the compulsion to check, and double-check, that all the batteries were charged.
-o-
While the car got a quick charge, we wandered down to the shops on the Lake Champlain waterfront to find some lunch. As always, Burlington seemed a happy little bastion of not-the-U.S. Ahead of its time, Burlington was 100% renewable powered, well fed by local agriculture, and never allowed the big box chain stores in. The city looked much the same as when I was a student there. The people didn’t.
“Cheese tasting,” I said, coming to a stop in front of a charmingly rustic restaurant and cheese shop.
“Lady’s choice,” agreed Adam. He opened the door for me with a broad flourish and bow.
We interrupted a vehement but quiet argument between the thirty-something year old staff, possibly a married couple. There were no other customers. Customers seemed in short supply at most of the restaurants we passed.
The woman rallied with a brilliant welcoming smile and indicated our choice of any seats in the house, that being a choice of about five wooden tables and a wooden counter with high stools. My eye was drawn to the cheese array behind the counter, so Adam steered us that way.
Apparently the man was in charge of the counter. “Can I interest you in lunch? Our lunch special today is a half pound of cheese in eight one-ounce samples, with seasonal fruit and bread and butter, and a craft beer. Or, a quarter pound of cheese,” he offered to me, “for the lighter appetite.”
I nodded emphatically, “A quarter pound is enough for me. Maybe we could pick different cheeses and share, Adam?” He nodded that it was a good plan. “I’d like local cow cheeses, please. Do you have four different local cow cheeses?”
“Absolutely. And you sir?”
Adam looked amused. “What is there besides cow?”
“Oh, cow, sheep, goat, water buffalo. I think that’s it.”
“One of each, then. Local. Different from hers, if possible.”
Actual cheeses were determined to complement our choices of six craft beers. Adam chose a pint inspired by the dark and chewy Trappist Chimay ale. I picked a half pint of a light hoppy lager. They matched perfectly with the selected cheeses. His cheeses were too strongly flavored for my beer, and mine too light for his, but we did each sample all of them. The star of the meal for me was the fresh local butter for the rich bread. The woman cored and sliced late apples for us. The apples cleared the palette between cheeses much like a Montreal sorbet.
The proprietors receded regularly to be non-intrusive, but returned to provide a steady patter of knowledgeable local cheese lore whenever we asked.
The tab was astronomical. But Adam cheerfully added a 25% gratuity and a pound each of our respective favorite cheeses. His was a pungent washed-rind cheese with a gooey center, reminiscent of Brie. Mine was called Morning Wind, with a flavor similar to gruyere.
Adam pointed to a small foot locker behind the counter after we settled up. I raised an eyebrow in inquiry. He raised a ‘wait’ finger until we were back on the street.
He took me by the arm to snuggle up to walk, as the day had cooled, still above freezing but damp. A sharp wind rose off Lake Champlain. The Adirondack mountains across the water in New York state lay hidden behind grey.
“That was an ark locker,” Adam murmured. “Military.”
I blinked. The locker was about the size of the Army duffel bags once seen with servicemen on airplanes. “That’s all you get to bring with you into an ark?”
“Military, yes. If it were up to me, everyone would get the same allowance. But most people, yes, that’s about it.”
“Military,” I echoed. “So the UNC ark is suppose
d to be 12,000 people. How much of that would be ‘military?’”
“UNC, 12,000? That seems… Well, I’m not on the UNC project. Probably one third defense staff, though. Inside the ark. More outside.”
I digested this in silence for a block or so. I was pretty sure he thought the UNC ark would hold nowhere near 12,000 people. Teasing about the steampunk incident aside, Mangal used to believe we’d be on the UNC ark. Until after we received those secret folders. Now he didn’t anymore.
The military angle I’d never even considered. But now that I thought about it, I realized with a sinking feeling that of course the arks would need protection. Why would the people outside the ark allow the privileged few to survive while they died quietly?
Big-time protection. And barriers to keep the ark outsiders away from the ark.
Satellite images. I bet Mangal had studied the raw satellite images. I made a mental note to do that, as soon as possible. And study the borders by satellite, too.
Say 10,000 instead of 12,000, for the whole ark complex, inside and this new military outside I’d never considered before. Over half military. There might only be room for 4,000 people in the UNC ark. With maybe an average of four people per family.
My guess was that my boss Dan didn’t tell us about the footlocker sized belongings limit because Dan didn’t stand a chance of getting into that ark. And Dan didn’t know it.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” Adam apologized. “That beer was stronger than I thought. I’m sorry, Dee.”
“No, God forbid anyone tell the truth these days. Thank you. I’d want to know.” I stopped and met his eye. “I would want to know.”
He swallowed. “Did you come with me on this trip to… No, never mind.” He started walking again, pulling me along.
I pulled him back to a stop and looked him in the eye again. “I wanted to visit Burlington and Montreal again. I went to school here. And the two of us had fun together on a magic pumpkin ride. It’s the end of the world. Why the fuck not?” A passing elderly couple shot me a look. “Pardon my French,” I tossed at them sunnily.
“OK, good,” said Adam. “Me too. Well, I didn’t go to UVM. I didn’t even know you went to UVM.” He glanced uphill. “Did you want to visit, see any old friends?”
“No, six years was enough, thanks. We’ve all moved on.” We started walking again. “I wasn’t done.”
“With school?”
I shot him a grimace. “School was lovely. The town was a blast. I haven’t kept in touch with anyone who lives here anymore. I meant, I wasn’t done answering you.”
Adam laughed. “Oh.” He turned us onto a pier, striding into the face of the stiffening breeze.
“That was why I wanted to come, and why I agreed to come,” I continued. “But then my friend, Mangal, suggested I should definitely come with you, and wrangle a berth on your ark. Because maybe I wouldn’t get into UNC’s ark. And then I didn’t want to come at all, because to date you for a berth on an ark, that’s… I don’t know what that is.”
“I see… No, I don’t.”
“Yeah, right?” I kicked a piling on the pier. “So then I started wondering what would be repulsive. You know, not horrible, but something that would kinda take the wind out of any romance, because then it would be OK. Because then I wouldn’t be trying to entrap you or something. I think that’s when I started shopping.”
Adam’s eyes lit with amusement. “OK. So you don’t really want to go shopping.”
“Well, no, now I do. You know, once I got started. I already made these deals.”
“Your beer was stronger than it looked.”
My face was burning. “No, I’m really like this.”
He laughed out loud and flung an arm around me. We headed back up the pier. “So where shall we shop, Dee?”
-o-
First stop was the textile mill on the Winooski falls. This was old New England industry, in its heyday from the mid-1800’s to mid-1900’s, and now rising from the dead. Some of the falls produced hydroelectric power. Other initiatives were reviving a saw mill and grain mill. But the old textile mill was the most ambitious renovation project.
Placards about the place explained all this. Vermonters knew how to play to the tourists. The cloth retail space was in a cavernous mall built in part of the old brick mill complex, with modern picture windows framing the view across the Winooski River and the falls. Educational nooks featured old industrial machinery and photos. My guilt level evaporated as Adam happily worked his way around the hall, studying the displays. The mill building was busier than the nearly empty lakefront district, but not by much.
I ended up with two fine bolts of cloth, and they cost me a mint. One bolt was a light but sturdy cotton duck with blue ticking stripes. The other was a navy wool blend from local wool and southern cotton.
Cotton supplies in New England were running low already. As a mostly-GMO crop, raw cotton was quarantined, though the blight hadn’t jumped species to cotton yet. None of it was allowed across the Mason-Dixon line border from the South. The nice saleslady’s apologetic explanation added at least a hundred dollars to each bolt.
Adam meandered over to help carry when I finished paying. “I guess you sew.”
I grinned. “I make all my steampunk.”
He looked suitably impressed. “Shouldn’t it be brown then?”
I considered the browns lovingly. “Yeah… What I really wear is blue, though. These blues are perfect.”
Second stop was the swap meet. The cheese and battery sellers I’d corresponded with online had said they planned to be there for the day. They brought along thousands of their closest friends, it appeared. Burlington never had Black Friday shopping at Walmart. The city never allowed a Walmart. But the barter economy was booming.
We found the battery guy first, to get rid of my produce crate. He had other heavy wares, too, so his stall was set up close to the road. I’d forgotten just how heavy those batteries were when making this plan. But the seller’s partner minded the table while he carted and trucked the 200-pound monster back to Adam’s car for us.
“So, are you all shopped out?” I challenged Adam.
“I’m still game if you are,” he offered.
We waded back into the enormous party. The lion’s share of the goods were tag sale fodder, unloved old junk that people were thinning out of garages and attics. But a fair number of people had crafts on display, from herb teas to belt buckles, vegetable spreads and breads to fine furniture and original paintings, and a bazillion yarn crafts. From watching others bicker, it was clear that my cabbages and dried tomatoes and canned peppers had nearly as high trade value as the thousand dollars I’d also given the Tesla battery seller.
“Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s. I gotta eat,” is how one weathered older vendor put it, as we walked by.
Adam got interested in finding a heavy woolen sweater for himself. “Good warmth when wet.”
“Kinda bulky,” I pointed out. This seemed at odds with the duffel-sized allotment of belongings he’d indicated before.
He winked. “Doesn’t include what you’re wearing on check-in day. What do you think of this one?” He held up a heavy pullover, knit in a Nordic pattern from four colors of natural yarn.
“That’s a beauty,” I agreed. I tweaked it across his shoulders and tugged it down to his hips. This careful attention to his well-toned anatomy was getting to me a bit. “Snug,” I commented, feeling the blush.
“I don’t think I need it larger?”
“Nope. No, that’s perfect,” I agreed.
“Well,” he told the vendor. “The lady says it’s perfect.”
The woman, about my age, nodded appreciatively. “Oh, yeah.” She’d been watching while I draped the sweater on Adam.
Her husband thwacked her butt playfully. “A sweater for the lady, too?” he suggested.
“Not for me, thanks.”
I boggled as Adam dickered the price down to twelve hundred dollars.
“Guess money doesn’t fit in those footlockers either, huh?” I quipped, as we wandered away.
“It really doesn’t,” Adam agreed. He wasn’t joking. But then he smiled and gave my shoulders a brief hug. He left his arm there as we continued hunting for my cheesemaker. It felt great.
Footsore and forty pounds of cheddar richer, we finally collapsed in the parlor of the gracious Victorian B&B. The fifty-something landlady provided hot tea and a couple large oatmeal cookies with a smile, and retired to her office. A large fire danced in the hearth to leech away any remaining ambition.
“B&B’s don’t really offer dinner, do they,” Adam pondered. He sunk into his winged chair, stocking feet gratefully elevated on a divan, reaching toward the warmth of the fireplace. He looked unequal to the task of supper even if it magically appeared before him.
I felt the same way. I shrugged lower into my overstuffed, over pillowed couch. “I’m amazed they offer car recharging.”
“That’s why I chose this place.” He frowned. “I never had my filet mignon. I was looking forward to that filet mignon.”
“‘Filet mignon’ is French,” I observed lazily. “I bet they could do miraculous things with filet mignon in Montreal.”
“A good French restaurant can do miraculous things with an onion,” opined Adam. “Seize the day.”
At this rallying cry, we both fell asleep for a nap before the fireplace.
-o-
B&B’s do provide breakfast, and this one did us proud. Which we enjoyed thoroughly, having eventually roused just enough for sandwiches and beer at a pub before crashing Friday night in our separate rooms. We were the only guests despite the holiday weekend. We’d come to accept this as the new normal. Everyone in touristy Vermont seemed faintly surprised we were there. But they were as eager as ever to relieve us of money, of course.
Settled up and with the car fully charged, we hit the road by 11:00 for the 100 mile trip to Montreal, maybe an hour and a half the way Adam drove. Don’t get me wrong, he drove very well. Carefully, courteously, and fast. We made good time running up I-89 through St. Albans. The day was remarkably clear for November, well above freezing with a deep blue sky, the warm sun winter-low in the sky behind us as we headed north.
