This World We Live In ls-3

by Susan Beth Pfeffer

  The sound of the engine turning over was just amazing. The sensation of being in a van that actually moved was beyond description.

  “Do you know how to get back?” I asked. “Or should I direct?”

  “I’ll need your directions,” Alex said. “I try to remember landmarks, but this country all looks the same to me.”

  So I told him where to turn. There were no other cars on the road, and no one came out at the sound of ours. I was relieved, since Alex had given me the shotgun and I was terrified I’d be expected to use it.

  “Who was in Tulsa?” I asked. “Or did you just pass through there?” It was easier to ask Alex questions with us both facing forward with no danger of eye contact.

  “We thought we’d find our aunt and uncle,” Alex said. “They set out for there last June. We spent a few days looking but no luck.”

  “It’s hard to picture cities,” I said. “Cities with people.”

  “They’re not like before,” Alex said. “There are bodies, mostly skeletons now, piled up. Even the rats have died. And only some buildings have heat, so you share apartments.”

  “Are there schools?” I asked, remembering my idea about places for politicians and millionaires to live. “Hospitals? Could you and Julie have stayed there?”

  Alex held on to the steering wheel a little tighter. “The plan was for me to leave Julie with our aunt and uncle. I was going to get to Texas, find Carlos, let him know where we were, and then go back and work at the oil fields. But I couldn’t leave Julie alone, so we went to Texas together.”

  “But you didn’t stay,” I said. “Couldn’t you have worked in the Texas oil fields instead?”

  “I could have,” Alex replied. “But there was no one to look after Julie.”

  “Julie’s a good kid,” I said. “She wouldn’t have gotten into trouble.”

  “Trouble would have found her,” Alex said. “We couldn’t take that risk.”

  I considered asking him about the convent, but I didn’t want to remind Alex that he’d caught me eavesdropping. “Could Dad and Lisa have stayed?” I asked instead. “Not necessarily in Tulsa. But in a city somewhere? Could Dad have gotten work?”

  “Maybe,” Alex said. “Maybe not. It’s all physical labor. But the only thing that mattered to him, besides Lisa and the baby, was getting home to you. He talked so much about you, I felt like I knew you before we ever met. You were on your swim team, and before that you used to figure skate, and you played Glinda the Good in your fourth grade play.”

  “He told you all that?” I asked.

  “And more,” Alex said. “About all of you.”

  I thought about Dad, about how I’d even for a moment thought he could love anyone like he loves us, and I felt happy and guilty at the same time. But mostly I felt grateful to Alex, even though there was no way he could know how much his comment meant to me.

  “Can I ask you a question now?” he said.

  “Absolutely,” I said. LLBA was asking me a question.

  “The bruises on your face,” he said. “When we got here a week ago, they were pretty bad. How did you get them?”

  It’s nice to know the first thing he’d noticed about me was my ravishing collection of black-and-blue marks. “I took a header off my bike,” I said.

  “Oh,” he said. “Julie and I had a bet going.”

  “Who won?” I asked, trying to keep the irritation out of my voice.

  “We both lost,” Alex said. “Her money was on you and Syl having a fight. Mine was on Matt slugging you one.”

  “Matt’s never hit me,” I said. “We weren’t brought up like that, like animals.”

  “Neither were we,” Alex said. “You don’t have to be an animal to hit your sister.”

  “Not in my household,” I said, sounding exactly like Mom.

  “Fine,” Alex said, sounding exactly like me.

  We drove the rest of the way in silence, except for when I told him to make a turn. But it was hard for me to stay sulky when I was so excited about all the food we were bringing back in our very own van with its very own containers of gas.

  Mom and Lisa stayed inside, trying to find places for all the cartons, while the rest of us carried in the food. The excitement was contagious. Charlie sang “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’,” and Julie danced around, and Matt and Syl grabbed each other, and Dad cried with joy.

  And I discovered that Alex knows how to smile.

  June 10

  You’d think with a houseful of food for the first time in a year, we’d be eating nonstop. Oh no. Not us.

  First off, Matt pointed out that what seems like an enormous amount of food now is going to vanish in the blink of an eye with ten people eating it. Okay, he didn’t say “in the blink of an eye.” He said that if we each ate four ounces of rice a day, we’d finish the four twenty-pound bags in a month.

  Four ounces of rice sounds like a lot of rice to me. And there’s all that other food we brought back, plus the food we get each week, plus whatever shad is still in the garage. But Mom agreed with Matt that we’d have to be very careful to stretch out our supplies for a long time.

  Then Charlie—Mr. Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’— pointed out that some of the food might have spoiled, and it would be a disaster if we came down with food poisoning at the same time.

  He suggested we become food buddies (that was his exact term, “food buddies”), and every morning two of us could take a nibble from one kind of food and two of us from another, etc., and then if we didn’t get sick, we could all eat the food we’d started that morning.

  Matt and Syl said they’d be food buddies, and Jon volunteered himself and Julie, which left Alex and me. Dad and Charlie said they’d food-buddy, also, and we agreed Mom and Lisa shouldn’t risk it.

  This morning Alex and I each had a bite of canned mushrooms, and Jon and Julie had a bite of beef jerky, and Matt and Syl had a bite of canned carrots, and Dad and Charlie had a sip of vegetable soup.

  We’re all still alive.

  And none of us have yet eaten our four ounces of rice.

  June 11

  My food buddy and I ate a bite of spinach this morning. I don’t like spinach and I’m not at all sure I like Alex.

  It’s Sunday, so after breakfast Alex and Julie went off to the dining room and prayed there while Dad, Lisa, Charlie, Syl, and Matt prayed in the sunroom.

  Jon looked conflicted about which group to join but ended up in the dining room with Alex and Julie. I guess he figured since he sleeps in the dining room, it was okay to be there.

  I’m not feeling real religious these days and Mom never has, so we chose to organize our fabulous food supply, one cabinet for food that hasn’t killed us and another for food we’re going to try next and another for food we get from town. We also separated all the food with expiration dates from over a year ago. We didn’t throw it out, because who knows how desperate we might get when we run out of rice, but we tucked it away where it wouldn’t tempt us.

  All this while Charlie and Lisa and Syl and Dad sang hymns. Matt kind of hummed along.

  Eventually Gabriel decided to blow his horn, which broke up the sunroom revival meeting. The dining room Catholics (and potential convert) lasted a little longer.

  While Mom and I flattened the cartons, we gave thanks, in our own way, for the merciful bounty that’s come our way.

  Chapter 11

  June 12

  Jon and Julie biked into town to get our Monday food. Julie offered to drive the van, and Mom nearly had a fit.

  When they got back, they were loaded with a dozen bags of food.

  “One bag for each of us,” Julie said. “Including Gabriel. And an extra bag for Lisa.”

  There was less in each bag than we used to get, but it was still very nice of them to include extra for Lisa and to throw in a bag for Gabriel. With all the food in the house and none of it poisoning us so far, the food from town is pretty much a supplement.

  Amazing. Enough food fo
r all of us.

  “I don’t know how we’re going to do it,” Mom said. “But let’s have a feast tonight.”

  “Like a party?” Julie asked.

  “Exactly like a party,” Mom said. “Lisa, is it all right with you if we have a party in the sunroom?”

  “It’s a wonderful idea,” Lisa said. “Why don’t we move our mattresses into the dining room and spread blankets out, like a picnic.”

  “Miranda, go tell the guys they need to come in early tonight,” Mom said. “Alex, too, of course. Julie, you go upstairs and tell Syl.”

  “A party,” Dad said when I told him. “Great idea. We have a lot to celebrate. Matt’s marriage, and our homecoming, and the food, and our move to Mrs. Nesbitt’s.”

  Matt didn’t look all that excited, and Alex looked uncomfortable, but Dad didn’t notice. Dad always liked parties.

  Charlie, Syl, and I lugged Dad and Lisa’s mattresses into the dining room. Lisa took Gabriel into the kitchen with her while I gave the sunroom floor a good mopping. Julie and Charlie went to Mrs. Nesbitt’s to get her silverware and glasses. We’ve been eating in shifts, so we never needed service for ten.

  Since we’ve gone three days without food poisoning, we had a lot of opened cans to eat from. Plus rice and shad.

  The electricity cooperated by staying on almost all evening, so in addition to cooking on the woodstove, we used the microwave. There was no way we could cook enough for ten people at one time. So first we had a few sips of vegetable soup, and then we shared bites of spinach and mushrooms, and then the main course of rice, shad, and green beans. We each had two dried figs for dessert.

  Then the party began. We’re used to spending the evenings together in the sunroom, Bible studies in one corner, chess and card games in another, but the whole idea of a party is to play the same games together. Charlie suggested charades.

  “What’s charades?” Julie asked.

  I had the feeling Alex didn’t know, either, but to be fair about it, I doubt Jon does and it’s not like I’ve ever played. Charlie explained about acting out names of songs or movies or books, and we divided into boys vs. girls. The boys went into the kitchen to come up with their titles, and we girls stayed in the sunroom to work out ours. Gabriel was an honorary girl. Mom sacrificed a piece of typing paper for us to write our titles on, and Jon donated the use of his Phillies cap for the girls’ slips of paper and his Yankees cap for the boys’. Then Charlie coached all of us on how to divide words into syllables and to cup your ear for “sounds like.”

  It turned out to be hard coming up with names of things. You want something that’s perfect to stump the other team, but it’s not like I’ve seen a lot of movies lately or read a lot of books. And all the songs seemed too obvious. But we each came up with two names, put them in the cap, and played.

  Alex went first, and he pulled out Mom’s choice of Little Women, which was much too easy. Lisa went next, and she got Matt’s title, Finnegans Wake, which was impossible, even though Mom said she had tried to read it once.

  But it didn’t matter, because whether we did well (Dad and Syl were the best at acting things out, and Mom was the best at guessing) or miserably (Jon, with me a close second), it was a lot of fun. It feels like such a long time since I’ve done anything silly. At least intentionally silly.

  We played until the electricity went off, but we were still enjoying ourselves, so Syl ran upstairs and got Matt’s old guitar.

  “I’ve been teaching myself,” Syl said. “I’m not very good yet.”

  She had to be better than Matt, though. He got the guitar for his fourteenth birthday, played it nonstop for three days, and never looked at it again.

  Syl strummed chords and Charlie sang, and then we all sang. Julie, it turns out, has a pretty voice, and with candles and the woodstove for light, you could see Alex’s face glowing with pride. Which made me kind of like him again, at least for a minute or two.

  After we’d finished massacring every Beatles song we could remember any of the words to, Charlie said to Syl, “I’d like to learn how to play the guitar. My fingers were always too fat before. Would you mind if I learned with you?”

  “Not at all,” Syl said. “That would be fun.”

  “I’d like to learn, too,” Julie said. “Could we start tomorrow?”

  “There’s no point,” Alex said. “We’ll be leaving in a day or two.”

  “I don’t want to go,” Julie said. “I want to stay with Hal and Lisa and Gabriel.” She paused for a moment. “And Charlie, too,” she said. “And Jon.”

  “We’ve stayed too long as it is,” Alex said. “You know what the plan is, Julie. It’s not open for discussion.”

  “It’s not fair!” Julie yelled. “No one asked me what I want to do!”

  I’d write what Alex yelled back at her, but he switched to Spanish. I didn’t understand what they were saying, but there was no doubting the tone.

  Matt and I have had our fights, but we never sounded that bad. The fights we had were over hogging the computer or getting in each other’s way. He was mean. I was a pest. We had fights like that with Jon, too.

  But this, whatever it was they were saying, was much deeper, much angrier. I guess it was the fight brothers and sisters have when they don’t have parents to stop them.

  For a moment I was afraid Alex might hit Julie, but that was just in my head, since he didn’t step any closer to her. But he must have said something really bad and Julie must have said something even worse because she ran outside, slamming the door behind her.

  “She’ll freeze out there,” Lisa said.

  “No,” Alex said. “She’ll be all right. Let her cool off.”

  He had to have felt all of us staring at him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “She doesn’t want to leave. But it’s the right thing.”

  “Is it?” Dad asked. “You know how much we love Julie. She’s family. She’ll be safe with us.”

  Alex shook his head. “I know you mean that, Hal, and I’m grateful. But there’s food now and it feels safe. Things change too fast.”

  “Even if we left, we’d take her with us,” Dad said. “She’ll always have a home with us.”

  “If you have a home,” Alex said. “For as long as you have food. No, the decision’s been made, and it’s the right one, even if Julie doesn’t see that. No matter what happens, we trust the church to protect her.”

  Which was more than Alex was doing, letting her run outside without a coat. I got up, grabbed one, and carried it outside.

  Julie was standing by the garage, close to where I’d been the night Mom kicked me out. Only it was raining that night, so I got to suffer more. I grinned at winning the martyr contest.

  “I brought you this,” I said, handing Julie the coat.

  “Thank you,” she said, putting it on. “What’s Alex doing? Explaining how wonderful the church is?”

  “Pretty much,” I said. “Would you rather stay with us? Even if Alex goes?”

  “Yeah,” Julie said. “But he won’t let me. Carlos said I had to go to the convent. We told him about it, and he couldn’t find anyplace else for me to stay, so he said I had to go there. I told him I didn’t want to, but he said I had to anyway. And Alex said Carlos was right.”

  “It’s a shame you couldn’t find your aunt and uncle,” I said. “Alex told me about them, how you could have stayed there while he worked in the oil fields.”

  “We didn’t want to live in Tulsa,” Julie replied. “I’d have been stuck taking care of my cousins. You think Gabriel cries a lot? He’s nothing compared to them. And Alex’ll be much happier in a monastery than he would be in an oil field.”

  “Monastery?” I said. I don’t think I’ve ever said that word before. “Alex wants to enter a monastery?”

  “Didn’t he tell you?” Julie asked. “I thought Alex told you everything. I thought maybe he’d like you so much, he’d change his mind.”

  I almost burst out laughing. The last living boy in Amer
ica drops into my bedroom only he wants to be a monk. I think that pretty much sums up my life.

  “He doesn’t like me that much,” I said. “And he never told me.”

  “It isn’t what he used to want,” Julie said. “Before. He wanted to be president of the United States. And I bet he could have been. He’s so smart and he worked all the time. But after we left Carlos, Alex said he’d take me to the convent and then he’d enter a monastery. There’s a Franciscan one in Ohio that’s still open. I’m never going to be a nun, though. I’ll stay as long as I have to and then I’ll come back here. If you’re gone, I’ll try to find you.”

  “We won’t be going anytime soon,” I said. “Mom doesn’t want us to leave, and since Dad and Lisa and the baby can stay at Mrs. Nesbitt’s, there’s no reason for them to go, either.”

  “People leave,” Julie said.

  I knew she was right, even though I couldn’t picture us leaving anytime soon. “If we do go, we’ll let you know,” I said. “I promise you that.”

  “And I promise you, you’re going to freeze without a coat,” Charlie said, approaching us. “It may be the middle of June, but it’s freezing out here.”

  “Not freezing,” I said, gratefully taking my coat from him. “It’s definitely above freezing.”

  “You’re right,” Charlie said. “It’s got to be at least forty.” He laughed. “I used to hate hot weather,” he said. “Just breathing made me sweat. But now I think about hot summer nights and everything I would give up for one.”

  “What?” Julie said. “What would you give up?”

  Charlie laughed again. “I don’t know,” he said. “Not any of you and I don’t have anything else. I guess I don’t have anything to barter.”

  “I used to think there’d still be stars in the sky,” Julie said. “In the country, I mean. We used to spend summers in the country with Fresh Air Fund families, and there were always stars. I had a postcard once of a painting with big crazy-looking stars.”

  “Starry Night,” I said. “Vincent van Gogh painted it. I saw it in a museum in New York. You’re from New York, aren’t you, Julie? Did you ever see it?”