Pandemic

by Ventresca, Yvonne

  Another food drive. I shuddered, more from my memories than the cold. Initially, I had been honored when the most popular teacher, Mr. B, had recruited me to help organize the donations last semester.

  It had seemed natural that he’d asked me, given my involvement in community service projects over the years. There was the coat drive, the pen pal program I’d started between local senior citizens and third graders, and the Penny Power collection “where small donations add up to big results.” I had believed that as a teacher, Mr. B wanted to motivate students to help others, to create some greater good. But like a trick-or-treater in an elaborate Halloween costume, he wasn’t what he seemed.

  So my community service days had come to a halt. Sighing, I mentally slammed that door and focused on my sweater search. A pair of sneakers and a single Ugg boot threatened to teeter off the pile. Wouldn’t you notice if you lost your shoes? I sifted through other people’s forgotten stuff, wishing I wore rubber gloves. When someone put a hand on my shoulder, I jumped.

  “It’s just me,” Ethan said. In the four months since our breakup, his bangs had grown longer, but the easy smile and puppy dog eyes were still the same.

  “You startled me.”

  “Sorry. Want me to sort through the pile with you?”

  “That’s OK,” I said.

  “You don’t want me to help?” he asked, and I knew we’d shifted from finding my sweater to something deeper.

  “Well, dumping me didn’t help much.” My tone was sassy. Sometimes pissing someone off was the quickest method to push him away.

  “It was mutual, Lil.”

  “You said the words.”

  “After you stopped acting like my girlfriend.”

  “Whatever.” I stared Ethan down, daring him to continue the argument.

  “You’re so different now.” He softened his voice. “Remember when you’d rush to find me, to sneak a kiss between classes?”

  A memory flashed of the last afternoon I’d met Ethan at his locker. “Have I told you that you look great today?” he’d said.

  I’d twirled for him in my floral skirt. “Not since lunch.”

  A fast glance for teachers before he’d pulled me toward him. “We’re all set for next weekend, right?” he’d asked when we stopped for air, his arms lingering around my waist. “I planned the best day to celebrate our year together.”

  “Yes,” I’d said, breathless and eager.

  But we broke up before I ever found out what he’d arranged. Leaning on the lost-and-found table now, I shook my head as if I could dislodge the memories and toss them away. Our relationship seemed forever ago.

  Ethan swiped his bangs to the side like he always did when he was nervous. It was one of his endearing quirks. “Will you ever tell me what was really going on when we ended it?”

  I avoided his eyes. I thought this conversation was over months ago, that his big question—Why?—could be ignored permanently.

  “What if I could guess?” he asked.

  My insides tightened into the size of a matchbook. Mr. B had taken an extended leave for “personal reasons” after I told the police what happened. News of a cheating scandal in the math department occurred around the same time. Luckily, that overshadowed the gossip about his absence from school.

  Ethan couldn’t possibly know the truth. Could he? Needing something to do with my hands, I folded a clean-looking sweatshirt and placed it carefully back on the table.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I said, grabbing a gray T-shirt to fold next.

  He crossed his arms. “OK, I’ll wait for you to tell me. Because one day things were great, we were on the verge of our anniversary, and then you pulled away.”

  “I’m sorry.” I thought about how good it would feel to be honest, to finally be free of the weight. But what would he do with the truth? Pity me? Judge me? Feed the rumor mill at school?

  His friend Derek walked over, with Jay not far behind. “Yo, Eth, ready to go?” Derek asked. “We’ve been waiting.”

  Jay looked with concern from me to Ethan, then back to me again.

  “Yeah, I’m done here.” Ethan turned away. “Totally done.”

  Fighting the urge to crawl into the discarded clothes and weep, I threw the T-shirt down and headed outside. Sometimes I missed him, the innocence of how he’d hold my hand, the late night talks, the daisies in my locker. I even missed the way he would text me too much. But there was no going back now. With a cigarette between my lips, I leaned against the big oak, sweaterless and shivering.

  I read another article about people getting sick in Avian, Maryland. Avian was a seaside town, only one hundred and fifty miles from Washington, DC. Officials speculated about everything from tainted water to a bioterrist attack. Dinner with Dad was the perfect time to dig for more information.

  “What’s going on in Avian?” I asked over our non-organic fried chicken. “Is it something contagious?”

  “It’s too soon to tell.” Then he changed the subject to cantaloupe, and soon we were discussing the difficulty of recalls and the importance of public health communication. I tried to steer the conversation back to the mysterious illness, but Dad wasn’t going along with it.

  After we cleaned the dishes, he dropped me at Megs’s house. Her kitchen was cozy and smelled like butter. I felt safe there, sitting on a comfy stool at the counter next to a large pantry with etched glass doors. Megs’s friendship always kept the outside world at bay for a little while.

  “What’s new?” Megs pushed a big plastic bowl of popcorn in my direction.

  I took a handful. “Ethan talked to me after school.”

  She raised her eyebrows in concern. “Are you reconciling with your shallow, over-texting, but oh-so-sweet ex?” She’d never been an Ethan fan.

  “No. The opposite of reconciling. He said I’ve changed.”

  “Well, he’s right for once.”

  I gave her the stink eye.

  “Don’t narrow your eyes at me like that, Lil. Ever since . . . well, suddenly black is your new favorite color and—”

  “It’s fashionable.”

  She made an exasperated sound, something between a sigh and a groan. “How many classes did you cut this week?”

  “I didn’t—”

  She stared me down.

  “OK,” I admitted. “Three. Well, four if you count health, which I don’t.” Sometimes on my way to class the urge to exercise my free will became so great that I couldn’t continue down the hall, find my seat, and absorb the required information. I had to leave.

  “It’s a matter of time before you get caught.”

  Confident, I shook my head. My elaborate system of passes involved the library, the school nurse, and the main office. No teacher had unraveled my scheme yet.

  “You know I’m right about changing. You skip class, quit your favorite clubs, and keep to yourself, like a hedgehog curled in a ball for protection.”

  “So now I’m a hedgehog? Thanks,” I said, feigning annoyance.

  “A pessimistic hedgehog. But come on, you know I love you.”

  I would have been mad at anyone else for being honest. But we’d known each other since kindergarten, back when there were three other girls with her name, until my classmate Megan Salerno had become Meg S., then my best friend Megs.

  Still, I could only take so much self-analysis.

  “Homework?” I asked, nodding toward her open laptop on the counter. It wasn’t unusual for her to get a start on assignments, even on a Friday night.

  “Actually,” she said, “I met this guy online.”

  “Online? That’s not good.”

  “Oh stop. We’re only chatting.”

  “Really? So your mom’s at work then.”

  “Yeah. She won’t find out,” Megs said. “I always erase my history. Besides, she’s being unreasonable about the whole chat thing.” Megs’s mom was a town police officer. Not exactly someone who would allow her daughter to have a cyber-relationship.r />
  I’d learned that, statistically, most sexual assault victims knew their abusers. But that didn’t mean strangers were safe to hang out with, either. “You’re sure this isn’t dangerous?”

  She nodded. “It’s through Morris County, for teens only. No adults. And he seems like a nice guy. We’ve been asking each other questions. Favorite color, that kind of thing.”

  “Does he go to our school?”

  “Lil, do I look like an idiot? I didn’t tell him what school I go to. What if he’s a stalker?”

  The eye roll was so tempting. But I stopped myself midway, as if her ceiling was suddenly interesting.

  “He wants to know if there are other kids in my family,” she said.

  “Yes, seven protective older brothers. All black belts.”

  “Ha ha. My lack of siblings isn’t exactly classified.”

  Megs was an only child like me. That was what drew our mothers together years ago. One play date led to another and they became close friends at the same time Megs and I did.

  “He has a brother and two sisters,” she said.

  “It would be pretty ironic if he did go to our school. Lots of guys we know have families like that.”

  “Name one,” she said, calling my bluff.

  “Hmm. How about Derek? Maybe you’re chatting with him and don’t even know it. Has your mystery guy typed ‘Yo’ yet?”

  “No. But he asked me what my favorite picture book was. He babysits a lot. Isn’t that sweet?”

  Yeah right. “I heard Derek loves to babysit.”

  “Shut up. I need a picture book. I can only think of Where the Wild Things Are, but he might think it’s a hint that I’m wild. So I need a different story.”

  “Hmm. There are the classics, like Goodnight Moon or The Cat in the Hat.”

  “OK.” She typed as I munched on popcorn.

  “You didn’t tell him your name, right?” I peered over her shoulder at the screen.

  “No. His username is 2009. I’m AG872.”

  “What does that stand for?”

  “Nothing. It’s totally random. Aren’t you proud of me? I didn’t use my name, my house number, my birthday—”

  “I’m glad you have some common sense.” I swung my feet back and forth. “Is it almost movie time?”

  “Why don’t you type for a few minutes? Pretend you’re me. I’ll get the movie queued up.”

  “I don’t want—”

  “It’s fun. Ask him a question.”

  The whole scenario made me fidgety. I did not trust some unknown guy potentially pretending to be something he wasn’t. That’s exactly what Mr. B had done; he’d perfected his caring teacher act, fooling the principal, the other teachers, and, most of all, me.

  I could explain my reluctance to Megs. She would listen. Or I could make a simple excuse. “I might repeat something you already asked,” I said.

  “Scroll back and read through our conversation. It’ll be fine.”

  Sometimes it was easier to give in to her than to fight. I glanced at what they’d discussed. Then, with a sigh, I started typing.

  AG872: What school do u go 2?

  2009: Can’t give that info out. What if ur a 50 yr old man?

  I couldn’t help smirking. Maybe I wasn’t the only worried one.

  AG872: How old r u? 52?

  2009: 16. u?

  AG872: Same.

  2009: Fav class?

  I hesitated for a second. But it wouldn’t hurt to tell the truth.

  AG872: Bio. u?

  2009: Family Consumer Science. You prob call it Home Ec.

  AG872: We have FCS too. Unusual fav for a guy. Ur a guy, right?

  2009: Ha ha. Yes, male. And I like FCS for the desserts.

  I hoped for Megs’s sake that he wasn’t morbidly overweight.

  2009: What r u doing tonite?

  AG872: Watching movie w/friend.

  2009: Anything good?

  “Megs, what movie are we watching?” I called to her in the family room.

  “Some drama about the end of the world.”

  “Really?” Of course Megs knew about my paranoid streak.

  “Oops,” she said. “I guess I didn’t think that through. Want me to pick a different one?”

  “No, it’s OK.”

  2009: U still there?

  AG872: Yeah. Movie is end of world drama.

  2009: So what’s it like as only child?

  I paused. It felt weirdly easy to tell the truth online, like telling secrets to the wind.

  AG872: Pressure. No other kids to distract them. If I do anything wrong they focus their laser-beam parenting on me.

  2009: What have u done wrong?

  Megs walked back into the kitchen. “Ready?”

  “You came just in time. I was about to turn you into a troublemaker.”

  She laughed, reading the screen.

  “Did I do OK?”

  “Except for biology as my favorite subject. Blech.” She started typing.

  AG872: Sorry. g2g. Same time tomorrow?

  2009: Can’t wait.

  After she logged off, we huddled on her couch and watched the movie. It was horrible. Disease, death, and disaster. I peeked through my fingers, practically hyperventilating at the end.

  “Sorry,” Megs said. “Bad movie choice, huh?”

  “I definitely need to buy more supplies.”

  CHAPTER 3

  “Survival of the fittest” doesn’t necessarily apply during a novel flu virus.

  —Blue Flu interview, emerging infectious disease specialist

  On Saturday I arrived at ShopWell early for my four-hour shift stocking the shelves. After the Mr. B incident, I’d quit my job at the church office, where I had to be polite all the time. Despite the dust, lining up canned goods was quietly satisfying and gave me a much-needed employee discount.

  Having extra food in the house calmed me. I’d noticed this—an odd inner peace—before Christmas, when I’d run a grocery errand for Mom and had bought more than she’d indicated on her neatly itemized list. I didn’t need to eat the food; it was simply comforting enough knowing it was there.

  I started small, buying a few extra items whenever I could. After several months, the cans, boxes, and bottles secretly expanded from my own closet to the one in the hallway that my parents rarely used. The extra towels, sheets, and suitcases concealed the food behind them. Unless, of course, Mom packed for an unexpected work trip.

  I straightened bottles of salad dressing. Gloves helped with the ick factor, especially when the shelves were slimy. While I worked, I mentally ran through my existing supplies. Usually the trick was to buy items that fit into my backpack, like canned vegetables or boxes of dried soup mix. But today was the perfect time to buy bulky stuff with Mom away and Dad distracted with his conference. When my shift ended, I did some toilet paper shopping, grabbing as much as I could carry home.

  My elderly neighbor, Reggie, was my favorite cashier. He didn’t have the shortest line, but I waited in it anyway because he was always cheerful. I studied him like an exotic animal at the zoo. In the months since I first met him, I’d never once seen him grumpy.

  “Hi Reggie. How are you?”

  “I’m mighty fine, Miss Lil. Mighty fine. That’ll be $20.32.” He helped me cram the TP into Mom’s reusable shopping bags, then hummed softly as I dug the cash out of my jeans pocket. The song sounded like “Zip-A-Dee Doo-Dah.”

  I counted my money, but only had four crumpled fives. Not enough.

  “Um,” I stammered, “I’ll have to put one back.” I started to unload a four-pack, but Reggie shook his head.

  “Don’t worry.” He took my fives and plunked some coins into the register, humming away. “You can pay me back next time.”

  “Are you sure?” I didn’t mind asking favors from close friends, but kindness from other people made me vaguely anxious. Before I could protest further, Reggie happily greeted the next customer.

  I stepped outside into
the spring warmth. The weather was perfect and I breathed in the scent of blooming flowers, relaxing the tension in my shoulders. The bright sunshine and chirping robins seemed to give the meteorological finger to Old Man Winter.

  Cars crowded the parking lot. ShopWell anchored a row of stores, including a pharmacy, a coffee shop, a bookstore, and a bank. Based on the traffic, today seemed like a popular day to be out running errands. A red convertible with the top down paused to let me cross in front of it. I lifted my hand to wave thanks to the driver but froze midair.

  It was Mr. B.

  Emotions washed over me. Fear. Anger. Hatred. Like a giant wave, the feelings threatened to pull me under, to drown me. Since he stopped teaching, it never occurred to me that I would see him again unexpectedly. I wasn’t prepared.

  Did he notice me? Sunglasses hid his eyes and his expression remained the same. A guy sat in the passenger seat, a younger version of Mr. B, wearing an orange Portico Pharmacy T-shirt. He said something and Mr. B nodded, his elbow resting on the open car window. Other people would see a guy in his mid-thirties with wavy brown hair and intelligent brown eyes. Just an ordinary man casually pausing for a pedestrian.

  Right.

  Hurrying past, I walked on autopilot, the bags of toilet paper banging against my leg. I kept my eyes down, as if that made me invisible, as if Mr. B couldn’t possibly recognize me.

  I never let my mind replay the whole movie of what happened. After telling the necessary people—my parents, the police, a therapist, the principal, Megs, and Kayla—I was done talking about it. Completely finished. But sometimes images broke through, like when I flicked TV channels and caught a snippet of a horror film before quickly changing the station.

  Fragments of memories flooded my brain now: Mr. B standing too close. His faint smell of aftershave and sweat. The inkling of fear before I even realized why I was afraid.

  “You want to spend time with your favorite teacher, right?” he’d said, his voice husky. “So many beautiful girls. And I chose you.”

  Trying to focus on the present, on staying safe, I checked for his car. The convertible turned left, moving away from me. Up ahead, a guy paused to light a cigarette, his hand cupped to block the breeze. Jay.

  I rushed to catch up to him, grateful that I wouldn’t have to walk alone.