He coughs. “Sounds like a thing.”
“A simple—and true—observation isn’t a thing.” I choose a plate where none of the crackers touches tuna and pick them off before they can slide over. “Someone needs to be quiet.”
“Yes, you do,” Tom says.
I poke his arm—which I absolutely do not notice is firm as all get out—then hand Pop a plate. A sea of tables stretches out before us, full of families and older people and adults. Most residents have been at the fairgrounds long enough to make connections, and I’m glad to see old folks sitting with younger ones. Many of the elderly likely haven’t had this much company in years. A few kids pet Willa, who can’t be outside for more than a minute without being showered with attention. She licks the tuna off their hands, tap dancing with pleasure.
“Outside?” Mitch asks.
There are plenty of empty round tables under the gray sky. Tom asks Barry something quietly, then nods at the answer. He hands his plate to Mitch. “Bring this for me? I’ll be there in a few.”
I wonder where he’s going while we head to a round table. Barry sits beside me, with Pop and Mitch across, and I watch the two shovel in tuna salad while I nibble at my crackers. There’s no way I’ll so much as consider putting that creamy half-orb of fish slop in my mouth, and the fact that it’s flecked with green canned peas makes it worse. I love vegetables—a crisp salad, broccoli or green beans perfectly cooked to an al dente state—but the overcooked and canned versions make me gag. If I want fresh vegetables anytime soon, I need a vegetable garden, though my black thumb and the fact I’m surrounded by concrete make that unlikely. You have to plant around now to harvest most summer vegetables.
“Where’d you guys get all this food?” I ask Barry.
“Supermarkets, mostly. A few schools. There’s another wholesaler we plan to hit this week along with some of those places you mentioned.”
I chew my next cracker slowly. I’m hungrier now that I’ve put something in my stomach. Still not hungry enough for fish, though.
“Supposedly,” Barry continues, “just over the Oregon border in Idaho, there’s a USDA National Warehouse. There’s only three in the country, I think. This one stores food for distribution to the West Coast, including for emergencies. If anyone in the area knows about it, they’re set.”
Tom appears holding something wrapped in a paper towel. He deposits it in front of me and then takes his seat. “What’s this?” I ask.
“Peanut butter and jelly. They’ll give you one if you ask nicely.”
I peel back the paper towel. The homemade bread is thickly cut, and peanut butter and red jam ooze from between the slices. “It looks delicious, and not just because tuna is the alternate choice. Thank you.”
Tom nods like it isn’t a big deal, but it is to me—the kind of thing Ethan did once upon a time but hasn’t for years. At some point, I moved from being hurt that he didn’t to not wanting him to. That way, I wouldn’t feel indebted to him, no matter how small the reason. I’m not sure which is worse.
I tear off a bite and chew it slowly. It’s yeasty and peanut buttery and sweet. In a word, perfect. “This is so good. I thought they didn’t have an oven.”
“One of the trucks has one,” Barry says. “They can only make a few loaves at a time, and it’s a highly sought after item.”
“Put me on cooking so I can make sourdough bread. I’ll sneak you some.”
“How could I refuse that offer?”
I rip off a hunk of crust. Crust is the best part, and homemade crust is even better. “If we could plant food, we’d have fresh vegetables, too.”
“I’ve been thinking that. Do you usually have a garden?”
“No, but not for lack of trying. I unintentionally murder everything, including houseplants. The only things that survive my affections are succulents.”
Barry laughs. “My wife loved to garden. We had—I have—a house by the Cascades, and she spent all summer gardening.”
“Do you go out there often?”
“Not in years. But I couldn’t seem to get rid of it.”
He looks thoughtful, a little sad, but not devastated. The others are in the middle of a conversation, but I keep my voice low anyway. “I’m sorry about your wife.”
Barry’s smile splinters his face into a hundred crevasses. “Thank you. It’s been six years. I’m okay now, though I wasn’t for a long time. I guess that’s why I held on to the house. I should’ve sold it years ago.”
“It’s up the McKenzie?” I ask, referring to the river—and road—that run east toward the Cascade Range.
“Yup, with views of the Sisters and Mount Washington. Fifteen acres, but it’s surrounded by protected forest.” I chew my sandwich, raising my eyebrows to show I’m impressed. Barry dips his head almost bashfully. “Yeah, it wasn’t cheap, but we did get a good price.”
“What’s the house like?”
“Big. Too big for me. It’s five bedrooms, a few outbuildings, things like that.”
He acts nonchalant, but you can’t fool a realtor. Even at a good price, his house cost a pretty penny. “What’d you do before this?”
“After I came home from the Gulf War, a friend asked if I wanted to go in with him on a tech startup. I didn’t know a thing about it, but I said sure. We sold it after a good run, before things went bust. I invested in a few companies along the way. It worked out.”
“Did those companies have names that rhyme with Hoogle and Famazon and Gapple?”
Barry’s cheek dimples with his suppressed smile. “A few of them might.”
“I always wanted a time machine so I could go back and buy some Hoogle stock,” I say. “Tell me more about the house. I love houses, if you didn’t figure that out from my job.”
My love of houses and a flexible schedule drew me to real estate when the kids were older. I loved walking through homes, imagining myself in them, and it wasn’t a stretch to do the same for clients. Aside from the usual duties of the job, I’ve dried tears, bolstered shaky confidences, plunged toilets, crawled under houses, and been snagged by countless blackberry brambles. Himalayan blackberries are delicious come summer, but they’re also an invasive species that takes root everywhere and anywhere in the valley.
“It’s rustic lodge style, with fireplaces and a big wood stove,” Barry says. “A shop, a small guest house, that kind of thing.”
It sounds a bit like my Idaho spread, although it likely cost one million dollars rather than fifteen. The place in Idaho is rustic the way only the filthy rich do rustic, and though Barry is well-off, he isn’t I-have-my-own-helipad well-off. Or he doesn’t act like he is, since those people are usually assholes. I’ve met a few, usually potential home buyers who came to Eugene and left in a snit when it didn’t meet their expectations of opulence.
“Why aren’t we there?” I throw an arm around Barry’s shoulders. “Hey Mitch, I found my new best friend.”
Mitch breaks off mid-speaking to mock glower while Barry chuckles. He seems like a genuinely good person. He also seems somewhat lonely, or at least alone, and I don’t like it.
Ethan arrives with Clara and Holly, sets a plate of tuna on the table, and sits in an empty chair. “Hey.”
“Hi,” I say cheerily. I wait a few beats and then drop my arm from Barry’s shoulders. I don’t want to act guilty—there’s no reason to—but my usual anxiety surfaces. Ethan, for his part, doesn’t seem to notice, which leads me to think I’m being oversensitive. Even, dare I admit, wrong in my skepticism of his newfound lease on life.
“Where’d your brother go?” I ask Holly.
“Off with Marquez and Nora.”
“What did you eat?” I lift my second half of sandwich. I want it, but I want Holly to eat more. “I have half a PB and J if you want.”
“I had one. It was good.”
“Am I the only person who didn’t know about the sandwiches?”
Holly pushes a curl behind her ear. “I didn’t, either. Nora got on
e for me.”
She frowns as if the sandwich was an insult. I catch Clara’s eye and receive a shrug in response. Nora is still a jerk in Holly’s book, which I find hard to believe, but I keep my mouth shut on that subject and instead ask, “What’s going on with that sickness?”
Ethan finishes chewing his first tuna cracker. He’d better not try to kiss me before a good tooth-brushing. “Not sure. Seems like flu or a virus of some sort.”
“Could it be the water?” I ask. Most of the table snickers. They think my insistence that their water be purified borders on obsessive. They’ll thank me when everyone but us comes down with explosive diarrhea.
“Not food poisoning or the water,” Ethan says. “That’d most likely be gastrointestinal. Plenty of people ate and drank the same things they did, and they’re fine. Just be sure to wash your hands and don’t go to the ice rink unless you have to.”
After we finish lunch and Willa has cleaned the plates, we walk toward our hall. The dark clouds begin to spit rain and receive a glum glance from Clara. “Another boring, rainy afternoon.”
“We could go see who’s playing pool,” Holly says.
“It’s probably kids. You know they never leave the table during the day.”
“We’ll tell them they have puppies in the lot and to run and grab one before they’re gone.”
The girls giggle—a sound I love to hear, even if they are plotting semi-evil deeds. “Who knew our children could be so diabolical?” I ask Ethan and Tom. “Why don’t you play with the kids?”
“Because they’re annoying,” Clara says.
“That’s true. Kids are super annoying.”
Holly snorts. “But not nearly as annoying as parents.”
She jumps out of reach when I swat her behind, then laughs at me over her shoulder. Instead of pale, her cheeks are flushed. Instead of sad, she’s back to her natural cheerful state, though there’s a touch of hysteria in there, as though she can make everything go our way if she only believes it enough. I recognize the look; I did the same when Mom was dying.
“That’s why I didn’t want kids,” Mitch announces.
“Never did?” Barry walks beside her, though far enough away that it seems purely by chance. After today’s lunch, however, it’s obvious he likes being around Mitch. He laughs at her jokes and watches her with an expression somewhere between amusement and admiration. Men who like strong women are awesome, and men who like Mitch are the best kind of awesome.
“Briefly,” Mitch says. “My ex and I debated it, but I dodged that bullet when I found out he was an asshole and swore off men forever.”
Barry blinks, digesting her words and the fact he’s a man. I glare at Mitch and receive a smirk in return. She can harangue me about my issues all day long, but Mitch has a boatload of her own.
“I live vicariously through Rose,” Mitch says. “Her kids are a little less annoying than most.”
“Such praise for decades of work,” I say. “It makes it all worthwhile, doesn’t it?”
“Sure does.” Ethan squeezes my hand. “I have to get back to the rink, but I won’t kiss you with fish breath.”
“And that’s why I love you.”
It comes out inadvertently, and Ethan grins before he takes off. A moment later, Barry excuses himself to do inventory. “Really, Mitch?” I ask, once he’s out of earshot. “Trying to scare Barry away?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Mitch says primly, then turns to Holly and Clara. “Hey girls, want to take the pool table by force?”
“Now I’m scared,” Holly says. “But let’s do it.”
Mitch steers them toward the Events Center. “Nice avoidance tactic,” I call after her. Mitch raises a thumb above her head, and I laugh. Even jerky Mitch is amusing.
“What’s with Mitch?” Tom asks.
“She avoids intimacy. The better suited someone is for her, the faster she runs in the opposite direction.”
“She’ll figure it out,” Pop says.
I trudge toward the door, dreading the next hours until dinner. “And then there were three. Is it me or was it far less boring at home?”
“Not you,” Tom says. “And that was pretty boring.”
“It was. But at least we had things to do.” Inside, I plop onto one of the folding chairs and wince when my butt hits metal. “We had a couch. I miss couches.”
Pop draws open the curtain to his and Tom’s room, and the metal pole falls out of its attachment for the hundredth time. I drag my chair over to deal with it before Pop can climb up on something and break his neck.
“Let me.” Tom steps onto the chair with the end of the pole in hand. “Some duct tape should do it.”
“Maybe Barry has—” I cut myself off when Tom fishes a flattened roll of duct tape out of his coat pocket, and I remember him doing the same at the school. I also remember thinking he was the kind of guy who helps just to be helpful, which has proven to be true. “Do you always have duct tape on you?”
“Pretty much. It can do anything and everything.”
“You sound like MacGyver.”
“I wanted to be MacGyver when I was young, so I’m taking that as a compliment.”
Pop lies back on his cot pillows, hands behind his head. “Remember how you loved that show, Rosie?”
I think about saying I had a teensy-weensy crush on MacGyver, based less on his appearance and more on his MacGyvering abilities, but that could be misconstrued as flirting. Awkward flirting, my specialty. “Who else could make a bomb using a stick of gum and an armadillo shell?”
“Did he really?” Tom asks, and rips off a long strip of tape.
“No, but he probably could’ve.”
Tom smiles as he winds the tape around where the pipes meet. He adds another piece for good measure, then wiggles the connection. “That should hold it for a while.”
“Thanks, Tom,” Pop says.
“No problem. Need anything else duct-taped?”
“Now that I know you have that, I just might.” Pop gets to his feet with a groan. “These old bones need to walk for a bit. You want to come, Willa?”
Willa scoots to his feet in answer, and the two make their way outside. I return the chair to our circle and sit down, very aware that Tom and I are alone. When it’s just us, it’s harder not to entertain the thoughts I’m not entertaining. I’ve disregarded that little fantasy from the other night, telling myself everyone has those thoughts. Plays out scenarios. Tom inspires the same tenderness I feel for Mitch and Craig. That’s all. I have to stop mooning over him like a teenager and act like a woman with two grown kids and multiple hot flashes.
Tom lowers himself to a chair across from me. “And then there were two.”
I smile and pretend to be interested in our surroundings. The paint is peeling off the walls and floor in here, and the top layer of exposed concrete has turned to dust in places. If my phone weren’t charging, we could listen to music, but I only got space on a plug today. And the fact that I’m now trying to think of something to say means I never will. It’s the same when someone asks me to name a favorite book or song and my mind goes blank, as if I don’t understand the concept of music or the written word.
“Thanks for my sandwich,” I finally say. “It was delicious.”
“Can peanut butter and jelly be delicious?” Tom asks. “It can be filling, or adequate, but not delicious.”
“It’s my favorite. One of my greatest fears was that my unborn children would be allergic to peanuts, and I’d have to give them up forever. The peanuts, not the kid, though it was a close one.” He grins, and I add, “There are entire restaurants devoted to peanut butter and jelly, you know.”
“Are they all hipster restaurants in Portland?”
“Probably.”
“I wonder how they’re doing,” he says. “Portland, not the hipsters. They’re probably zombie food.”
“Hipsters can be annoying, but I like lattes and good cheese and social conscious
ness, so I hope they’re alive.”
“Is there anyone you can’t see the good in?”
“Of course,” I say. “I’m super evil in my mind.”
His cheek creases. “I highly doubt that.”
“I may feel guilty about it later, but it’s true. My mom always said we should try to see the best in everyone and to help if we could. But she didn’t just say it. After she died, people came out of the woodwork to tell us about things she did for them. We had no idea of the half of it.”
Pop and I treasured those stories, although with each one we felt our loss more keenly. My mother wasn’t perfect—she was human, with a smart mouth and ordinary grouchy moods—but her kindness came straight from her heart, and she was never stingy with it.
I miss her every day. I often wonder if she’d be proud of me, if I’m the person, the mother, she hoped I’d be. What advice she would give about Ethan and the kids. Sometimes I think I’m doing okay, and other times I feel as though I’m hiking through the wilderness without a map and compass.
“She sounds like she was special.”
“She was. I decided I wanted to leave behind the same legacy, so I do my best to remember that whenever I’m tempted to be an asshole. Which, I’ll have you know, is surprisingly often.”
Tom’s laugh rumbles. “I still doubt that. But I guess it works in our favor, though you may threaten to evict some of us to get the point across.”
I groan, dropping my head back. “I’m sorry. I usually don’t threaten people, but the zombie apocalypse shortened my patience.”
“That’s not always a bad thing.”
“Maybe not. Not sure it stuck, though.” It’s the most I’ll say about Ethan. About how I wish I were less pliable. More sinewy and strong. I talk a good game, but when push comes to shove, I fold like the uncomfortable chair on which I sit.
“Practice makes perfect? Feel free to keep me in line if necessary.”
“Somehow I don’t think it will be,” I say.
“You don’t?”
There’s no mistaking the pleasure on his face, and I study the floor before he sees what might be on mine. It isn’t just hormones, though there are plenty of those. I like him the way I like Mitch and Craig. And in another way entirely. Two months ago, I would’ve laughed my ass off at that idea, and now I’m trying my hardest to pretend it isn’t the case.
The Cascadia Series (Book 1): World Departed Page 47
