The Virus

by Janelle Diller

  That became our benchmark then.

  “Do you need any drugs?” he would ask.

  “Not yet. Not today. Maybe tomorrow,” I would respond.

  In early December, I was in Nebraska. NBP was in their final round of testing before go-live. I was hacking away at the last-minute messages to send out, which were made all the easier because all the software worked, including the shipping. Who would have believed it?

  Eddy pinged me.

  EddytheWebMan: Hey. u there?

  MRiderZAAN: Eddio... Whassup?

  EddytheWebMan: did you see the news this a.m.?

  MRiderZAAN: Nope.

  Some things never change.

  EddytheWebMan: our favorite president just announced that there are finally sufficient vaccines available for the whole US of A.

  MRiderZAAN: Not just priority 1 & 2.

  EddytheWebMan: everyone

  MRiderZAAN: So the riots will stop?

  EddytheWebMan: guess so

  MRiderZAAN: Guess you’d better get yours scheduled.

  EddytheWebMan: LOL

  MRiderZAAN: Yeah. Laughing out loud, too.

  Maybe now the economy would start bouncing back.

  I checked the CDC site for details. It gave a link to all the local vaccination places. Colorado Springs listed at least three dozen locations for inoculations. People could also go to their family doctors, but it would cost a hundred dollars plus office visit fees instead of twenty dollars per person.

  Convenience cost.

  Most NBP people, like the rest of the country, were ready to go under the knife, Marcia Wells being the exception rather than the rule. Our only other conversation she and I had about smallpox vaccination had been the day after the barbecue, and it was a little like the proverbial morning-after conversation. Too much beer, too much loose conversation, too many revealed nutty ideas will do that to you. Still, I think we both felt connected to the other one.

  I took a chance and sent her the link to the CDC vaccination site along with a note: “I’m sure you and Craig will be lining up for yours right after my husband. ;) ”

  She responded two minutes later: “We may be the last three people in the country to get vaccinated.”

  I replied: “Then why would you need one? Everyone else will be inoculated. You’ll be perfectly safe.”

  She responded, “At least from smallpox. Can’t say the same for the government goons.”

  I left it at that. It could have deteriorated, and at the end of the day, both of us were susceptible to our corporate big brothers checking our email conversations. I was more vulnerable than she was. I was pretty sure Zaan had a whole department that only read emails that passed through cyberspace.

  The more you’re afraid, the more you have to do to protect yourself.

  CHAPTER

  18

  ON DECEMBER FIFTEENTH, THE GOVERNMENT ANNOUNCED ONE LAST CARROT: after January eighteenth, all air travel within the fifty states would require proof of smallpox vaccination. Now that we had the means to get protected, no one had the excuse not to do it.

  It was kind of them to at least wait until after the holidays.

  Eddy and I spent Christmas at home. We should have traveled to see his sister Karen in Virginia, but I just couldn’t bear getting on a plane the one week I didn’t have to. We invited Karen and her family to come see us using our air miles, but they waited too long to make up their minds until there weren’t any free seats left. Eddy finally agreed to schedule a trip to Virginia after the first of the year. It would be the last time he could fly domestically since he would never get the vaccination. Someday, maybe the two of us would make a road trip there.

  We called Karen on Christmas Day, toasted our long-gone parents and our childhoods, and invited other Colorado orphans to dinner on the twenty-fifth.

  I was lucky to still have friends since my social life had totally dried up over the years from all my time on the road. They were lucky that Eddy roasted the goose. During all those traveling years, I’d lost whatever knack I had for cooking things. As Eddy had pointed out to me multiple times, how much culinary finesse did it take to dial room service? I could still make a salad—unless I had to toast the nuts. And I could still manage desserts—as long as the packaging wasn’t too complicated.

  Eddy did let me make the stuffing for the goose, only because mine used to be prizewinning and he was in charge of the oven. I had a little trouble with it this time because to get the taste and texture right, I had to keep adding more ingredients.

  Eddy teased me that it was soup-kitchen size by the time I got it just right. I suggested we invite more people for dinner, and he could cook a second goose so it wouldn’t be so obvious. He pointed out it was that kind of thinking that got me in trouble with the stuffing in the first place.

  Before we were even through the appetizers, the conversation turned to the new travel requirement for smallpox vaccinations. Myra and Rick Daley had already gotten themselves and their twin seven-year-olds vaccinated. The unofficial word at the local grade school was that schools in Colorado Springs would start requiring the vaccination by February or March anyway, so it made sense to get it done.

  “Didn’t all the requirements bother you?” Tina Bastante asked. Our longtime friend Pete Kawalski had married her the summer before, so I didn’t know her very well. Her question was interesting, though, because she was a doctor, a family practitioner.

  “Well, sure,” Myra said. “But what are you going to do? We have a spring break trip planned for Hawaii, so we’d need it for that anyway.”

  “You have questions about it?” Rick asked. He poked Myra with his elbow as if to say, “See, I’m not the only one.”

  Myra, who was a striking bottle-blond against her husband’s beak-nosed, stoop-shouldered profile, just rolled her eyes and gave Rick a look. “I’m not having this discussion again. We’re not going to stop traveling, and our kids will need it anyway for school before the end of the semester. What options do we have? Besides, I don’t actually mind being protected from a smallpox epidemic.”

  Rick ignored his wife. We’d seen plenty of sniping between them over the years. This was a reminder, once again, that they were a lot more fun individually than they were as a couple.

  “Did you get vaccinated?” Rick tilted his wine glass at Tina.

  She sighed. “I did. I had to. All health care workers were a Priority One. That included hospital housekeeping and dietary workers, not just doctors and nurses.” I had a flash of Craig Wells’ client and wondered how his case was proceeding. Eddy hadn’t found any updates that told us anything new.

  Pete rubbed his wife’s neck. It was a sweet gesture. “Tina really struggled over it. Said it was highly invasive for what it was supposed to do. But what was she going to do? Quit medicine?”

  Tina shook her head. She was a fine-featured, dark-haired beauty, at least ten years younger than the rest of us, including Pete. “If I’d had a choice, I wouldn’t have. Or I would have at least waited until some outrage surfaced about all the fingerprinting and stuff.”

  A kindred spirit.

  “But she loves her job,” Pete said.

  Well, maybe not totally kindred. Travel aside, I did have to endure the team at Baja Breeze.

  I glanced at Eddy, who’d been uncharacteristically quiet. He returned my look but busied himself with basting the goose.

  Rick picked up another mini quiche, the delicate, flaky Eddy kind, not the Costco-frozen, stick-it-in-the-oven, even-Maggie-could-do-it (most of the time) kind. “So why hasn’t there been some outrage out there? I keep waiting to see protests or editorials or something. But people just keep lining up and volunteering.”

  Like sheep to the slaughter.

  “There’s some protest out there,” Eddy said. He knew. He’d posted everything he could find on his website. “But you’re right. It’s very low-key and kind of fringe. A few columnists in the major papers like The New York Times and the San Francisco Ch
ronicle. Some stuff in smaller papers that never hits the national media. The protest doesn’t seem to have legs.”

  “Why do you think that is?” Pete asked.

  “Fear,” I finally said. “People think they don’t have options.”

  “That’s right,” Myra said. “You understand that, Maggie, because you were a Priority One, too, weren’t you?”

  I nodded. Tina looked at me.

  Rick said, “My theory is that we’ve all been psychologically beaten into submission by 9/11 and all that homeland security shit. Scare people enough, and they’ll volunteer—no, they’ll beg you—to let them get the vaccine. We’re a nation with battered-wife syndrome. Not only do we not know how to get out of the mess, we keep returning to get beat up some more.” It was the kind of comment you’d expect from the clinical psychologist in the group, but I agreed with it.

  Pete poured a little more wine into Tina’s glass, then topped off Rick’s and Eddy’s. I shook my head at more. I had to pace myself. I only got goose once a year and I intended to fully taste it. Pete talked while he poured. “No kidding. Talk about irony, Tina’s cousin is a firefighter in Chicago. He said the day he got his vaccination there was a crowd of at least a couple thousand people who weren’t Priority One. They got really ugly, tried to force their way into the building. The police inside the building who were waiting to get vaccinated managed to calm the crowd.”

  “I think that’s happened a bunch of places,” I said and repeated the same kind of story I’d heard from the data entry clerk when I got my vaccination.

  “There were reports like that early on. They got some press,” Eddy confirmed. “There haven’t been as many reports about people who refused to get fingerprinted or their cells scraped. But I’ve found a few first-hand accounts by bloggers. A couple of them were arrested for refusing. One claims he was roughed up by the police and ended up in the hospital. While he was there, they vaccinated him.”

  “Talk about irony,” Tina said.

  “Yeah, but bloggers,” Myra said. “Can you trust that? I mean you can write anything you want, say it happened, and put it out on the Internet. Then it’s the gospel and everybody quotes it like it came from CNN.”

  The others looked at Eddy to see if the hair was standing up on the back of his neck, but I knew he wasn’t offended at all. He’d said the same thing every time he read a blog he disagreed with. “You’re absolutely right, Myra. Here’s a paradox, though. Just because it’s on CNN or Fox News, though, doesn’t make it true either.”

  “Well I know which source I’m more likely to believe.”

  “Maybe. Tell me this, then, Myra.”

  I studied my wine glass. I knew where he was headed.

  “How many confirmed reports are there of people who have died from smallpox?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. A thousand or more?”

  Eddy shook his head. “Three. The prisoner in Florence and the two guys in Salida.”

  “Not true. They announce every night on the national news what the new death toll is. It’s growing all the time.”

  Eddy shook his head again. “Do they ever give a name? Do they ever interview a family member or hospital personnel or anyone who might have a personal connection to the victim?”

  “What does that have to do with whether there really are victims out there?”

  “They only interview CDC personnel and people in the administration and then announce where there were more outbreaks.”

  “That’s your proof?” Myra asked. “Look, if I died of smallpox, you think Rick would want his face on the evening news about it? You’re a pariah if you’ve had any contact with smallpox. Why would you want everyone to know it?”

  “Myra,” Pete said. “If you contracted smallpox and died from it, don’t you think we’d all know about it already? Too many people want their fifteen minutes of fame. And while Rick would certainly be way too private to go on national television and cry and grieve, there’s plenty of others who would be glad for the chance to have a little camera time.” He helped himself to a scoop of crab dip. “You know, Eddy, that actually makes sense. I hadn’t put it together, but that explains why I’ve had this uneasiness.”

  Eddy nodded. “So maybe there aren’t any real deaths. How many real people do you think have contracted smallpox?” He opened the oven and basted the goose again before continuing.

  “The media would have us believe several thousand,” Rick said.

  “Again, how many confirmed reports?”

  “In addition to the three that have died: one,” Tina said.

  Myra shook her head. “I just don’t buy it. I don’t believe this whole thing has been cooked up. Drive down to Salida. They had at least a dozen people there who came down with it.”

  Eddy looked at me, but it was Tina who spoke. “Actually, we’ve had a number of discussions at work about this. Glen, my nurse practitioner, is from Salida. He says the two guys who died from it didn’t expose anyone else. They were up in the mountains for a week of bow hunting during their contagious period. No one in town knows of anyone else who got it.”

  Eddy could have prepped her, but I could tell from the look on his face that he hadn’t. He was clearly pleased that she’d confirmed everything he’d heard from our friend Cindy Marshall.

  “Salida’s small,” Pete said.

  Tina nodded. “Glen said the town really buzzed when the news came out in the paper. But no one knew of a single person who’d gotten sick. Not one. A town that small, somebody had to know at least one person.”

  “So The New York Times is wrong.” Myrna said and huffed just a little. She looked like she didn’t believe Tina. “Why would the news report that people are sick and dying if it’s not true?”

  Tina shrugged her shoulders. “You tell me.” Tina sighed and then lowered her voice even though it was just the six of us and the cooking goose in the kitchen. “He said the CDC guys made everyone nervous.”

  “About what?” I asked. “That the vaccine doesn’t really work?”

  Tina shook her head. “Creepier than that. More along the lines that it could happen again. People getting exposed that is. Only maybe next time it won’t be smallpox.” She paused and took a bite of crab dip. We all waited. “It’ll be something there’s no vaccine for. Maybe it’ll be something in the city water supply. Or the veggies at Walmart will get sprayed with something.”

  “So who did the CDC guys say were going to do this? The terrorists? I don’t get why they would poison the water supply if people talked about whether there were smallpox victims or not in Salida.” Myrna clearly wasn’t buying the direction of this conversation.

  Tina looked at Pete who looked at Eddy who looked at me.

  Eddy finally said, “Myrna, I don’t think the threat came from the terrorists.”

  “What are you talking about? That sounds so paranoid,” Myrna said. “You guys and your conspiracy theories.” She looked at the rest of us for some support, but no one made eye contact.

  “Maybe,” Tina said. “All I know is that Glen was pretty freaked out by the whole thing.” She paused again. “I guess I’m with Eddy on this.” She tilted her wine glass toward him. “What you see isn’t what we’ve got.”

  CHAPTER

  19

  THE GOOSE, OF COURSE, WAS THE EXPECTED HIT. As a nice bonus, everyone, even Myra and Rick’s twins, graciously complimented the stuffing, as well. Eddy fixed up bags of all the leftovers for everyone and then fixed additional bags of stuffing to send for their neighbors and relatives. That would leave us enough till New Year’s, as long as we had some every day for every meal. Including breakfast.

  I knew Eddy would think twice about putting me in charge of the stuffing ever again.

  On Monday after New Year’s, we both headed to the airport, Eddy to see his sister, me to NBP for the last time to tie up loose ends. They’d gone live on Zaan without a hitch, just as everyone expected. I was convinced Zaan should use the NBP projec
t team as Zaan contractors for future projects. I’d never seen a company knock out an implementation as cleanly as they had.

  Eddy dropped me off with his driver’s license at the United door. While he parked the car, I scanned us both into the self-service check in and then went to wait in the security line. We knew it would be brutal after the holidays even with the slow down in air travel, but we never expected the incredibly long line that snaked back to the escalators and wound back toward the ticketing desks, at least a hundred and fifty feet of bodies. In all my years of Monday travel out of the Springs, I’d never seen anything like it. Even then it seemed like we had plenty of time, given that I have a high level of gate anxiety and always try to be at the airport at least an hour ahead. On Mondays that usually means I’m sitting at the gate fifty-five minutes before departure.

  Eddy joined me after about fifteen minutes. My gate anxiety was creeping up. We were just past the escalators, which meant that if we kept on track, we might make it to the gate at departure time minus five minutes. We were going to miss our flight.

  “Holy Pazolies,” Eddy said. “No wonder you hate to fly. How can you stand lines like this?”

  “I’ve never seen it like this. And it’s moving like sludge on a cold day. I don’t know if we’re going to make it.”

  “Uh oh. If the optimist says that, I need to start seriously worrying. I may be in over my head on this one.”

  I pressed the United 1K speed dial number on my cell phone and worked my way through the number choices until I reached a real person.

  “Hi. I’m standing in the security line in Colorado Springs and it’s like stopped. If I miss my flight, when’s the next one I can catch to get to Lincoln, Nebraska, today?”

  Okay, I admit it. Gate anxiety drives bad behavior or, as Eddy sometimes points out, “me” behavior.

  I gave her my information and Eddy’s, too. With my United status, the customer service rep on the other end didn’t dare ask me why I hadn’t gotten to the airport two hours ahead, which was the official stance. Like I needed an hour and fifty-five minutes at the departure gate every Monday morning.