End Game (Calm Act Book 1)

by Ginger Booth

  “I like it,” he said with a grin. He handed me a plate piled with Thanksgiving dinner. Once my hands were full he ducked in for a peck of a kiss.

  If a kiss is light enough, it isn’t entirely obvious that you don’t return it.

  “Thank you. This looks incredible.” I stared at the plate. I hadn’t thought what to do about Zack yet. I put the plate into the refrigerator while Zack settled into a recliner in the living room.

  Ethically, I was on safe ground doing whatever I wanted with Adam or Zack. No commitments had been made. Emotionally, I was pretty sure that argument didn’t hold water.

  I returned to curl up on the couch next to his recliner.

  “So how was Montreal?” he asked eagerly.

  Zack was such a guarded guy, and his face was wide open tonight. I felt like a cad. But I launched into telling him about my adventures.

  “‘Adam,’” he interrupted. “Another old friend?”

  “Not exactly. Actually I met him about the same time I met you.”

  “Ah.” Yes, that eager wide open face shut like a clamshell.

  “Zack…” I tilted my head away from him. “Adam and I joked about Montreal when we met, how it would be great to see it before the borders closed.” My head tilted toward Zack. “And then I went mushrooming with you.” Head tilted away. “And then he said, let’s do it.” Head back toward Zack. “I almost said no, because I had such a great dinner with you.”

  Zack stopped my head bobbing with a firm hand on my crown. “Yeah, I get it.” He sat back and crossed his legs. Elbows on chair arms, fingers interleaved, thumbs flicking at each other tensely. “So. How was Montreal?”

  I guess he wanted to know about Montreal more than he wanted to storm out in a huff. So I told him about the gran caravan at the border, and then getting waylaid by it again near Albert Dunes State Park. His tense thumb-flicking slowed and stopped, as he became riveted by the adventure.

  “Lucky guy,” he murmured, when I reached the empty beach.

  “What?” I accidentally caught his eye.

  Zack deliberately held my eye in a strong cool blue challenge. “A lot more romantic than Montreal, for you. Wish I’d been there with you.”

  I stared back like a deer caught in headlights. I didn’t know what to say. I dropped my eyes.

  “So how long did the gran caravan keep you?” he prompted.

  I resumed the story, quickly summarizing the long road back to Connecticut.

  “Wow,” Zack said at the end. He thought a few moments, then added, “A shame you didn’t make any contacts in the gran caravan. I’d love to hear what they see going forward.”

  “Oh. Actually I did. I exchanged contact info with the ‘French’ doctor.”

  After work, when I unpacked from the weekend, I found a note from Dr. Jean-Claude Alarie in my luggage. “Let’s keep in touch!” He included several websites, with logins and passwords, a cell phone number, and email addresses. One of them was Canadian.

  “Yeah, it’ll be interesting to see what comes of that.”

  “Really.” Zack was staring at me again, thoughtfully.

  I wished he’d stop that. It was unnerving. Was he angry? Jilted? Laying counterclaim? Calculating something else? What?

  I sighed. “Zack, it’s been a hell of a day.” I don’t know why he didn’t just leave. Instead, he made gentle interrogative noises and drew the story of my day and Connor’s suicide out of me, too. I lost it recounting how his mother had screamed at me and said I’d murdered her son.

  Zack teleported to the couch and held me while I cried it all out. He didn’t tell me it was all OK, or not my fault, or any of those other inane things people say to tell you there’s nothing to cry about when you’re bawling. Instead he told me to cry it out and let it go. He stroked my back slowly and steadily and just held me. Fortunately there were tissues on the end-table. I went through a wad of them.

  “Thank you,” I mumbled eventually. “Sorry. I needed that.”

  “You’re tough,” Zack replied softly. “We’re rooted in Connecticut granite, you and I, Dee Baker.”

  In the wiped-out calm after a hard cry, that simply seemed true, to me. “Yeah.”

  I can’t help wondering what that might have led to, if the house phone hadn’t rung. I let it go to voicemail. But it was Adam. I lunged for the phone before he got any more explicit over the answering machine speaker.

  “Yeah… yeah… Yeah, I need to call you back. Someone’s over right now. Yeah. Bye.”

  “Adam,” Zack echoed stonily.

  Yeah, that being rooted in Connecticut granite thing was working real well, for Zack and me both right now.

  “Zack… Look, I wouldn’t blame you for storming out the door. But I’m wiped out and I haven’t eaten dinner yet. I wanna try this wild turkey. You wanna split the wild turkey?”

  “Well, thank you. No. I don’t need to storm out. But I think I should go.”

  At the door, he enfolded me in a friendly hug and pecked a kiss on the top of my head. “You’re alright, Dee Baker.”

  “Thank you,” I mumbled into his shoulder. His strong hug felt good, no demands, just strength and comfort. It’s a shame we ever had to talk. We understood each other so well when we didn’t say anything.

  And the doorbell rang. So I opened the door.

  “Alex! Hi, how are you? Zack Harkonnen, this is my neighbor Alex. Montoya, isn’t it?”

  Alex hugged in on himself in his hoodie sweatshirt. “I’m hungry,” he blurted out. “Can I come in?”

  “Of course,” I said. I looked at Zack blankly. Zack took one look out the door and closed it. He followed Alex into the dining end of the kitchen. I didn’t have a separate dining room. And that’s just who Zack was. Emotional context be damned, he wasn’t going to leave in the face of a possible emergency. He made himself comfortable at the table and made sure Alex did the same.

  “Alex, I was just about to have Thanksgiving leftovers that Zack brought me. Shall I split them three ways?” Zack shook his head to indicate none for him. “Alex, Zack caught this wild turkey as a baby and raised it for Thanksgiving.”

  That was the perfect ice-breaker. The guys entertained each other. I softened some butter and set the table, with bread and three settings of bread plates and water. Then I carefully microwaved the leftovers, to get the relative temperatures right and not spoil any of the textures. Zack watched this with interest.

  Alex got wrapped up in his own misery when the conversation lapsed. So Zack kept it going, mostly on farm animals, since Alex seemed to brighten at animals.

  “Here we go,” I said, setting two full plates before us. Alex had already inhaled three slices of buttered bread. That allowed him to slow down and appreciate the Thanksgiving plate.

  “This is fantastic, Zack,” I said, and I meant it. “The turkey is really moist. I would have thought it would be tougher and drier than the supermarket birds.”

  “Thanks. Yeah, free-range is tougher, so I brined it.”

  “I need to get your recipe for that. And I think I recognize the mushrooms in this stuffing. Alex, Zack is a master mushroom hunter.” That successfully got the guys talking again while I enjoyed the sumptuous bits of pure locally grown and made traditional Thanksgiving. Occasionally I interjected things like, “This succotash is divine.” Zack’s sister froze the corn, zucchini, peppers, and lima beans in summer, and seasoned them in a butter sauce after cooking. Tricky, and delicious.

  I was delightedly full after half of what Zack brought. Alex wiped his plate clean and slathered another slice of bread with butter. “Oh! I forgot the pie.” I’d separated that out to defrost but serve cold. I handed half the pie to Alex.

  “Sure you don’t want to split mine, Zack?”

  “I’m good,” he assured me with a smile.

  Alex buttered yet another slice of bread after the sliver of pie. Teenaged boys sure can eat.

  “So, Alex? I guess your Mom hasn’t come back?”

  H
e paused in his chewing, then shook his head no vigorously. He turtled down toward his plate.

  “How long has she been gone now?”

  He shrugged. I left the question hanging in the air to be answered. “Couple weeks.”

  “Did she say anything about where she was going?”

  “Um, she said she was going to the doctor. I was at school. Before they closed the school.”

  I blinked. “They closed the schools?”

  Zack nodded. “Three weeks ago. They couldn’t pay the teachers.”

  “Some of the teachers tried to keep it going anyway,” Alex offered. “But the police came and kicked us out.”

  So it had been at least three weeks, maybe four. “Wow, that leaves you with a lot of free time on your hands, doesn’t it? Lot of video games?”

  Alex grinned shyly and nodded.

  “Lot of friends over?”

  “Nah… I didn’t… I was afraid they’d…” After a couple false starts he brought out in a rush, “You’re not going to turn me in, are you?” He sat looking at me with huge terrified eyes.

  I steepled my fingers judiciously. “Turn you into what, I wonder? A frog ? A newt?” I confided to Zack, as an aside, “I don’t actually know what a newt looks like.”

  “Well,” Zack replied reasonably, “you can’t very well turn him into a newt, if you don’t know what a newt looks like.”

  Alex giggled in spite of himself. “I like rabbits,” he suggested shyly.

  “And you’d make a fine rabbit,” I assured him. Satisfied that the tone had lightened, I observed, “Alex, if the schools aren’t even open, I’m not sure who I’d turn you in to. You’re safe and warm and fed now. We can make sure you stay that way. Let’s play it by ear for a while. OK? See how it goes.”

  “Friends are important,” Zack interjected. “I think you should see your friends again. If their parents give you any trouble, just tell them Dee and I are looking out for you while your Mom’s away.”

  I nodded. “Just tell them to talk to one of us. Want to sleep over here tonight?”

  “No, I got the pets and stuff.” He rose to flee, then turned back. “Could I… come back for breakfast?”

  I smiled at him. “See you then. No earlier than 8:30, OK?” I added to his receding back.

  “Really?” said Zack. “You’re not up until 8:30?”

  “I start work at 9:00,” I said quellingly. “It’s a very short commute.” I pointed to the room I used as my office. That’s the one the architect intended as a dining room.

  He snorted. At long last, I successfully saw him out the door.

  After a bit, I called Adam. I lacked any desire to tell him how my day went. I gathered he wasn’t free to discuss much of his day. We set a date for Wednesday evening for him to deliver my monster battery from Burlington, and help me install it.

  The conversation was light and easy. We were both dead tired. So we encouraged each other to go to bed early and hung up soon.

  I sat there staring at the phone afterwards. Comparing Zack and Adam seemed monstrously unfair. Also impossible, because events and our reactions to them seemed to dominate how I knew them. Though, if things kept up like this, maybe their reactions to life’s little challenges were key.

  But they were both awfully good in that respect. Adam had an edge in following my lead. Zack seemed more likely to present a lead I’d follow.

  After the previous date I had with Zack, I thought Adam didn’t stand a chance. Then after the weekend I had with Adam, I thought Zack didn’t stand a chance, due to sheer shared experience. Zack disabused me of that notion real quick tonight, though.

  I liked them both. Which I already knew before this little bout of introspection. Introspection wasn’t my strong suit. I gave it up and went to bed.

  Chapter 9

  Interesting fact: Not all boundaries were along previous state lines. The New York City northern boundary ran from halfway up Connecticut, west to the point where Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York states met. Its southern boundary nearly bisected New Jersey across its waist, running from Trenton to the Jersey shore south of Asbury Park. Those boundaries were built from interstate highways, I-84 in the north, and I-195 to the south. This was explained as extra epidemiology control for the most densely populated corner of America.

  Adam and I were see-sawing my battery out of his car when Zack emerged from Alex’s house. “Gah,” I muttered.

  Adam lifted an eyebrow. “Problem?”

  “Um, kinda had first dates with you and him the same week,” I said hurriedly, before Zack reached earshot. He headed straight for us.

  Thankfully, Adam looked amused.

  “Hey, Dee,” called Zack. He strode up to Adam and held out his hand to shake. The guys introduced themselves, eye on each other instead of me. Then he offered, “Need a hand?”

  “Sure!” decided Adam.

  Zack grabbed my corner. “Motherf–! What’s this made of, gold?”

  “Real grateful for the help, Zack,” I assured him. “It’s too heavy for me.”

  Adam was less impish and more eager for the help. I mostly held my garden wagon steady while the engineer and the muscle figured out how to get the battery onto it. Adam had already prepped the installation spot indoors with wiring.

  They worked surprisingly well together. I was impressed at the firewood-and-towel roller system they devised to get the battery through the door from the garage without breaking wallboard or doorframe. And Adam was smart enough from the first not to try to mount the hefty battery on anything but the floor. It was only anchored to the wall; the floor took its weight.

  They shook hands and slapped each other on the back once the battery was in place. Zack wiped sweat off his brow despite the freezing cold. The muscle differential between the guys didn’t seem to bother them. Adam respected Zack’s greater strength. Though Zack needled Adam a bit on strength, he also recognized Adam’s planning would have allowed him to accomplish all this with only me for assistance, if Zack hadn’t come along.

  I wandered into the kitchen to rustle up a round of beer, while Adam verified the electrical connections, and that the new battery was charging properly in series with the old one. Zack watched with interest.

  “Zack? Come here a minute?” I called from the kitchen. When he arrived, I thrust a beer into his hand, and asked, “What’s up with Alex?”

  “Had some chores I wanted to hire him for. Trying to get him out of the house. I know you’re busy during the day, Dee. But it’s not good for him to just hide in there playing video games.”

  “OK. Thank you. But the kid just lost his mother, Zack. He only came out of hiding two days ago. I’ve barely got him eating out of my hand yet.”

  Zack shrugged. “A guy’s got to earn his keep, Dee. I just thought, maybe, you could be the warm and supportive backing. And I could kick his butt into action a bit. Boys that age respond well to a man ordering them around.”

  “Alright. Thank you. What’s he doing for you?”

  “Oh, kind of a neighborhood survey. You’ve got empty houses here, and so do I. So, who’s left?”

  My eyes narrowed. “You’re canvassing for landscaping clients?”

  “Call it a civic activity. I’m coordinating with the RTM.”

  The Representative Town Meeting – the RTM – was the local equivalent of a town council. Members represented their sections of town.

  “The RTM that closed the schools?” I asked sourly.

  “They closed the schools?” Adam asked in surprise, wandering in. I handed him a beer and he parked himself across the table from Zack.

  “I guess neither of you follow local politics,” Zack observed. “Anyway, Dee, I had something for you, too. You know this town better than I do. If you were setting up a food cache, where would you put it?”

  “A food cache! Personal, or a big one?”

  “Big one. You been in a supermarket lately?”

  “Yeah…”

  “I haven�
�t,” said Adam.

  “It’s getting rough,” I told him. “And winter’s coming. They’re running out of the staples, and pretty soon fresh produce and meat.”

  I grabbed an old tablet I used to control the picture-window sized display in the living room. The guys wandered out to watch.

  “I think,” I said, “the middle of the marsh.” I brought up a good satellite photo and centered it where I wanted it. “You are here,” I dropped a marker. “And right here is an old World War II bunker.”

  “Why?” asked Zack.

  “Well, there aren’t any roads to there, and it’s surrounded by marsh. No one’s going to find it by accident. Even if they know where it is, it’s hard to reach, hard to attack, and easy to defend. Wasn’t that what you wanted?”

  “No, that’s great, it looks defensible. I meant, why is there a bunker there?”

  All three of us contemplated this hummock of hill, the water’s end of the next ridge west of mine. It lay next to an abandoned railway track, in the middle of a vast marsh, a good half mile from the sea.

  “Rampant paranoia?” suggested Adam. We considered the map a bit longer. “Zoom out a bit,” he suggested. “Do you know of any other bunkers like this?”

  I dropped a few more markers. “Maybe… here? And here. And there? Those are all the ones I know.”

  “You’re right,” said Zack. “Rampant paranoia. It’s a line of bunkers running up the coast.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. There’s old industrial… stuff… here. Trap rock quarry. Reservoir. One of these high points is called Beacon Hill and another Watch Hill, which probably meant something some other century. Those other bunkers connect up to New Haven harbor, and its fuel oil drums. One of the librarians might know, but I don’t.” I shrugged again. “Anyway, if I were hiding a cache, that might be good.”

  “What about this island? Or the headland?” Zack suggested. Zoomed out to see the other bunkers, the display now included the uneven shoreline, full of stony inlets, islands, headlands, rivers, and marshes.