Curds and Whey Box Set

by G M Eppers

  “Thank you for your time. Another press conference will be scheduled shortly when I’ll be happy to answer any questions you have. Thank you for coming.”

  She turned and walked back the way she had come, with Vice President Lade right behind. While the rest of us sat stunned, Badger pushed the buttons to take us back to the link with Miss Chiff’s office. She must have seen our expressions for she waited more than a full minute before speaking. “Opinions?”

  “You knew?” Sylvia asked.

  “Only since,” her eyes moved as she glanced at a clock, “around four this afternoon.”

  Badger was taking notes with one hand, his thumb zipping around the screen on his cell phone. “Surely you tried to talk her out of it.”

  “I expressed some concerns, yes. Particularly regarding our readiness. She suggested we get ready.” Miss Chiff shifted some folders around on her desk, relegating a couple from the top to the bottom, then opened the new one. “To that end, Mr. Montana, have you thought about what we discussed at the chapel?”

  I hadn’t expected her to bring it out into the open like that. Everyone was suddenly looking at me and I felt guilty for not filling them in. Without explaining further to those expectant faces, I replied. “Yes, Ma’am. I’ve decided to change my specialty.” She marked something down on a form inside the top folder. “But I don’t know to what.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Roxy yawn. She put her hands over her mouth, but it was easy to tell what her jaw was doing under there.

  “Very good. The January Dispatch is ready for you. I’ll include the course catalog with it when I have it delivered to you there in the morning.”

  “In the morning?” Sir Haughty asked. Normally, we headed out immediately after receiving a call from Miss Chiff. We’d gotten dressed and everything. “You don’t have a mission for us?” That would have been surprising. She usually had a large backlog of investigations that needed to be done and with the loss of Team C we fully expected to be deployed right away.

  I think I saw a strand of Miss Chiff’s hair slip out of her bun, but it folded back in as if afraid of reprisals. “Yes, I do. But it’s local. There’s something strange at the Museum of Natural History that I’d like you to look at. You’re to report to Dr. Prospero Stephano in the Department of Mineral Sciences at ten.”

  Nitro, giving his chin an investigative scratch to see if he needed a shave, remarked, “Mineral Sciences? I wonder what that’s about?”

  “Rocks mostly,” replied Badger. He collected the glares from the others with a grin.

  “Get a good night’s sleep. And welcome back.” She reached out and the screen reverted to an infomercial for a new spice mixture that would make any food flavorful and delicious.

  The demonstrator sprinkled it on a plateful of kale and instantly a five-year-old girl gobbled it down with a smile. It was called Ooo Mom Me Like It. Nitro, the vegetarian, hearing the word kale, looked up. “You can’t be serious. Anyone can see that’s not kale. It’s translucent. It’s Gummi or I’m the Queen of England.”

  Badger turned it off quickly and turned toward me like a teenage girl looking to dish on her girlfriend’s latest date. “You’re changing specialties? What happened to being coordinator?”

  I shrugged it off as if it wasn’t a big deal. “I can’t marry Avis and stay coordinator. You know. There’s a thing about conflict of interest. Superior and subordinate. Stuff like that. There were other options but I didn’t like any of them. Changing specialties made the most sense.” I got up and started walking toward the stairs as if that were a sufficient answer.

  Nitro’s room is on the first floor, so he wouldn’t be following me upstairs and he didn’t want to be left out of this conversation. He leaped to his feet and got ahead of me to block my path, unsatisfied. “But who’s going to be coordinator?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He walked backwards in front of me, but slowly, reasoning it out aloud. “They can’t promote one of us, can they? We haven’t had command training. We’ll have to get a whole new coordinator. Oh boy. That could be awkward. The last time we got someone new –“

  “You got me,” finished Sylvia. She’s the newest member who joined us just months before she lost her eye.

  “Come on, guys. It’s late,” I said. “Let’s get some sleep. I want to be fresh for tomorrow morning.”

  “Ah ah,” admonished Sir Haughty, pulling out his British. “Ten o’clock in the morning is hardly early. It’s barely after one now. Don’t be so cheeky. Plenty of time for a nice chin wag.”

  “There’s nothing to wag, Sir Haughty.” They were ganging up on me, blocking my way to the staircase, where Agnes and Avis, who had gotten there first, watched, bewildered. “I have to change my career path. I’m sure I’m not the first one. Now, as Sir Haughty likes to say, bugger off and let me go to bed.” My voice rose a little. I tried not to let it, but I really was tired. As you’ll recall, I’d had a very long week.

  There was a moment of silence. Most of them seemed to be backing down, starting to disperse. Then Sylvia, looking absolutely crestfallen, said quietly, “I don’t want another coordinator.”

  “I’m sorry.” I was sincere. It certainly wasn’t my first choice, either. “But I love Avis. I’m going to marry Avis. And I’m not going to let anything get in my way. You’re not losing me. I’m staying with the team, I promise. This is the only way I can do both.”

  “Oh, that’s it.” It took a moment to register that it was Nitro speaking again. “You have to shake up the whole team dynamic because you want a piece of paper? There aren’t a lot of coordinators to go around, you know. She’ll have to pick someone fresh out of the Academy. There aren’t any with field experience. What if it’s someone we don’t like? Did you ever think about that?” As he went on, he was getting quite worked up. I knew it was because he was tired. We all were, even though mostly we don’t like to admit it. He clearly had something to work out, so I let him continue. “We’ve been working like a well-oiled machine lately. Sure, losing your mother is going to squink it up a bit –“ Squink? I thought. He’s so upset he’s making up words. “—but we already know you. So you fell in love. Big deal. We all fall in love sometime, don’t we? We don’t go off half-cocked and change everyone’s life because of it. But no, you’re quite the bargain hunter, aren’t you? Enjoying your little two-for-one deal?”

  That was seriously out of line. Immediately, his hands went over his mouth. “Oh my God, Billings. I didn’t mean to say that! I swear! I apologize.” He really felt horrible. “You should hit me.” He brought his hands down and stuck out his chin, which did, indeed, need a shave. “Go on. Fist or palm. Whatever you want. Have at it.”

  The others were on alert, ready to pull us apart if we got into it. But that’s not why I backed down. “I’m not going to hit you, Nitro. We are all emotionally exhausted and on edge.” He’s on edge, I thought. An hour ago I was talking to my dead mother. “Forget about it.” As far as I knew, Nitro wasn’t in a relationship and hadn’t been for some time. He was probably at least a bit jealous, possibly resentful of having to be married to his work instead. Being the physician for a whole team of people was not a part-time job.

  I turned my attention to the team. “Everyone get your go bags ready, just in case. Local missions can change into away pretty quickly. I want everyone at their best tomorrow. Lights off in 30, tops. Clear?”

  I could tell they weren’t sure how to react. They were glad we hadn’t gotten into a physical altercation, but what Nitro said had been very offensive. I could have given him an official reprimand. I still could. But I knew I wouldn’t. It was his one free pass.

  The team dispersed and I joined the twins on the climb up to the fourth floor. “I’m going to stop in my room and pack,” I told Avis. “Go on ahead. I’ll be up in a few minutes.”

  “Are you okay?” Avis asked. She was worried that I was upset, but even that was fading rapidly. Sometimes people do say things they don’t mean.


  Then I thought of something else. Nitro wasn’t just in charge of our physical wellness, but our emotional wellness also. There was a pretty good chance he’d been trying to goad me, to make sure I was still in command of myself before we got back out into the field. Nitro didn’t always explain himself. You can’t if you are testing emotional responses. I should have known by now that when he did something out of character, he had an ulterior motive. The more I thought of it, the more sure I was that I’d been tested. I was pretty sure I passed, too. “Yeah, I’m good.”

  I veered off on the third floor and went to my room, turning on the light and smoothly pulling my go bag out of the closet, gathering the stuff I wanted to take. Some decisions would have to wait until we knew where we were going, but the core essentials were always the same.

  As I got clean underwear out of my second dresser drawer, my eyes fell on the urn that held my mother’s ashes. Known as a scattering urn, it is not sealed like an urn would be that was buried in the earth. Made of ceramic and glazed to a smooth shine, I could use it as a vase after I disposed of the ashes. The lid screwed into threads in the top, and there was also a rubberized plugged hole in the bottom, allowing for multiple methods of scattering the cremains.

  “So, that’s me?”

  I jumped, bumping the dresser and causing the urn to totter slightly. I put out a hand to steady it. Mom was standing behind me. She looked solemnly at the urn, no longer playful and curious like before. “Yes.”

  She reached out to touch it, and though she stopped with what appeared to be her skin on the surface of the urn, I could see true contact would not be made. “I’ve been thinking. About the Chris Pine thing.” She paused, her eyes moving from the urn up to my face. She didn’t take advantage of her new skill to meet me eye to eye, but stayed her normal height. “I never expected to need –.” And though she had neither lungs nor a need for oxygen, she took a breath and stepped back away from me. “You do what you think best, Billings. No pressure.”

  “You want to see them, don’t you?” She nodded, so I did what she couldn’t and unscrewed the top. Leaning it toward her and into the light, I let her peer inside. I’d seen them. I didn’t need to see them again.

  She stared into the urn for nearly a full minute, her eyes moving so slightly to take in every inch of the interior. “You heading out?”

  “In the morning. We’re supposed to check out something at the Natural History Museum.” She finished looking and I put the urn back on top of the dresser. “Mineral Sciences.”

  “That’s weird.”

  “Weird is in these days. Things are so different now. Big changes.”

  “What do you mean?”

  A train load of thoughts were running through my head and I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to follow my own advice and go to sleep. I’d felt tired before, when Mom first showed up. Now I was wide awake and feeling an urgency I didn’t understand. I sank down onto my partially made bed. “In a month, all cheese goes illegal. I’m assuming except for cream cheese and stuff like that. Anything made with rennet. Uber or not.”

  She got a look of horror on her face. “All cheese?” I nodded. “That can’t be right. That would be insane. That’s prohibition.”

  I looked up at her sharply and knew where the urgency was coming from. Mom had been a history teacher in her pre-ghost, pre-CURDS life. I couldn’t take a history class without her checking the syllabus and making sure none of my teachers glossed over any important event. Mr. Durthy’s seventh-grade textbook had exactly half a page on Prohibition. She got Montgomery Beechum’s When Amendments Go Wrong, Richard Trieze’s The Prohibition Years, and Kirby Fortenbrau’s America’s 13 Year Mistake: A Graphic Novel out of the library and had me read all three of them. I didn’t mind too much, actually. They were all interesting reading, though Trieze’s was especially thick and badly paced. Between the three of them, and with some coaching from Mom, I had a thorough understanding of Prohibition by the time Mr. Durthy started covering The Korean War.

  When President Glenarrow had been speaking, the ideas had made me uncomfortable, but I hadn’t made the connection. I did now.

  I left Mom behind and hurried to Badger’s room.

  Chapter Two

  The door was closed when I got there, and I put an ear to it to see if I could hear sounds of sleep. I heard movement instead and knocked once. “Come in,” he called.

  Badger was wearing pajama bottoms with the Washington Senators logo on them, his sporadically hairy chest bare. His chin and cheeks had that slightly moist, freshly shaved look and I caught the scent of Aqua Velva. The covers on his bed were folded down in a triangle. The only light was the dim glow from his bedside lamp. “What’s up, Billings? Didn’t you tell us to get to bed?”

  I cut right to the chase. “How hard is it to call the president?”

  Sitting in the open triangle of his bedcovers, he blinked at me. “What?”

  “The president. Can I call her?”

  “Billings, it’s the middle of the night…” He slid his feet and legs in and flipped the covers over, but didn’t reach to turn off his lamp. “Is there a problem?”

  I didn’t want to explain the whole thing to him. In the back of my mind, I was still sorting out the words I wanted to use to explain it to President Glenarrow. “Possibly.”

  He glanced at the clock, which said nearly 1:30 A.M. “She’s in Ethiopia, Billings. Peace talks. Remember?”

  I turned and pointed down the hall toward the stairs. “But she was just on TV.”

  “That was pre-recorded. Didn’t you see the notice in the corner?” I hadn’t. Well, naturally I had SEEN it, but it hadn’t registered. “Was the broad daylight not a clue?” Again, I hadn’t noticed that, either. He looked at me with concern, respecting my request without needing the details. “I can try to connect some time tomorrow, I guess. It takes some time to get through the security channels.” President Glenarrow has a very transparent and approachable administration, but there are limits to access that couldn’t be avoided. She’d had a relationship with my mother, but that had never really extended to me, as far as I could tell.

  I stopped a moment to do some quick math. Ethiopia is seven hours ahead. Early morning there now. Mid to late afternoon or early evening by the time I could get in touch with her, if it was even possible. “Okay, tomorrow. As soon as convenient. Wake me if I’m not up yet.”

  He picked up his phone from the nightstand and made a note to himself. “Got it.” I wouldn’t have been offended if he’d asked what it was about, but he didn’t. I supposed he was too tired to care just now. I thanked him, and went up to the twins’ room.

  They were already asleep, Avis’ arm stretched across the bed into my space. Gently, I lifted her arm and cleared some room, got into bed, and doused the light. I stared into the darkness for a long time before finally falling asleep.

  I was standing on a sidewalk. The twins stood next to me, Avis in a sunflower yellow flapper dress with fringe swinging around her knees and a matching headband with a tassel down one side. Agnes wore a similar outfit in flaming red, their connecting band covered in a graduating cloth blending one to the other. They were both in spike heels that would have made Roxy jealous, and loudly chewing gum. On the other side of Agnes was a cast iron railing, separating a concrete stairway that led down below street level. Somewhere down there, a big band was playing music, The Charleston, muted by the closed door, and I could hear people socializing just inside.

  “Do I look like a chippy to you?” said a woman.

  “Would ya be here if you ain’t?” replied a man. The woman squealed. “Those gams are talking for ya, Babe.”

  “If you want any Barneymugging ya gotta pay for it.” She giggled. “Tell ya what, seize me some squish and hail a –“

  “Pipe down!” The man yelled suddenly. “Not so close to the door. You want we should get pinched?”

  He must have led her away from the door then because their voices
faded into the music. A moment later the music got louder and then softer as the door opened and closed. An older man in a shabby, brown suit came slowly up the stairs. He looked at us, then down the street. He panicked and squeezed past Agnes, not at all disturbed by seeing conjoined flapper twins, and then ran off the other way.

  Moonlight reflected in sparkles on the damp pavement. Twenty feet ahead of us a man stood in the soft glow of a gas-powered streetlight. He was wearing a tailored medium gray suit with a vest and holding a tommy gun pointing our way. My dream brain told me it was Al Capone, but for the purposes of this dream and because he was in my head for other reasons, Al Capone was being played by Chris Pine. “Hand over the provolone and nobody gets hurt,” he snarled.

  I was in a navy blue suit, but shabby, like the old man, with no vest, and a long black canvas coat that felt older than I was. I held my arms wide, my hands open. “I don’t have any provolone.” But I did. I felt it. A big brick of it in the bottom of a deep pocket in my coat.

  Chris Capone shot a short burst into the sidewalk, cement chips flying, and the twins gave an abrupt scream. “I seen you with it. Hand it over, easy like.”

  “I’m telling you, I’m on the nut,” I said, taking a step back. I don’t even know what that means, but it felt natural.

  Avis seemed terrified, clawing at my shoulder in despair. Her knee fringe swirled and I got a little glimpse of lower thigh. “Give it to ‘em, Billsy. He’s not bumping gums.” I didn’t know about his gums, but her gum was crackling in her mouth like Rice Krispies.

  “I ain’t no chump. He ain’t gonna knock me off. They’ll send him to the big house.”

  Chris Capone laughed. “Already been in the cooler twice.”