by Max Lockwood
At the sight of the police officer standing on her doorstep, she did her best to school her face and hide her emotions. She would give them away by acting like she had something to hide.
"Officer, what can I do for you?"
He gave her a nod in acknowledgement.
"Ms. Thomas, I was sent to ask you to go into town."
There was that flash of panic, again, before she buried it down. "What for?"
"Well, we got a visitor at the station this morning. The Mayor from the other town, Charleston I think his name was, he wants to speak to you. Refuses to talk to anybody else."
Clara felt her eyes grow wide. She'd forgotten about the deal. Why had he personally come himself, though? And why to speak with her personally? He had made the deal with her, but she was technically acting on behalf of the town. Their own Mayor was believed to be one of the victims of the crash, but he could have talked to any senior officer at the police station.
She could only assume it was part of his tricks.
Also, she didn’t want to meet him, or attempt to make any more deals with him. She was still unsettled with what she'd learned, being in his presence would only make it worse.
Most of all, though, she was nervous, knowing she overstepped the line in her negotiations before. He might have attempted to cheat them, but it had been the literal agreement they made, even if he had been trying to poison the town.
She didn’t think she could go by herself. The officer might accompany her anyway, but he was a stranger. So she turned to Cooper, who still stood beside her, waiting.
"Do you mind going with me?"
He glanced back into the house, up the stairs. "Are you okay with leaving your family alone?"
She hesitated. It had been okay the day before, but in light of new information, it was the last thing she wanted. Still, they might not be gone for long. Surely they could be okay for a while, and it was still daylight…
"It should be fine as long as it doesn’t take too long. If it does, you can come back and I'll follow."
He shrugged. "Then I don’t mind."
They both turned to the officer, waiting. He gave them another nod before turning sharply and leading the way. They locked the house behind them and followed the officer into town.
Chapter Twenty-Five
There was another police officer waiting for her just outside the station when she arrived. The one they'd followed into town left them, and the other officer stepped up to Clara as soon as she drew close.
"Mayor Charleston is waiting for you inside the station office. Just go to the back, you'll see the plaque on the door."
She nodded, and the officer walked to the side.
They had all kept silent through the walk, with Clara projecting an outward calm she didn’t feel. Her heart beat erratically in her chest, and she just barely controlled any outward emotions. She didn’t feel powered by anger like before, and the thought of walking in there to go meet a Mayor and renegotiate after their initial deal went bad made her shake. She wasn’t bolstered by adrenaline and anger this time, and she wasn’t sure how the meeting would go, but she had a feeling it might not fall in her favor. Her knees wanted to collapse, she was barely keeping herself on her feet.
The one thought that ran through her mind, was that if she pulled this off, properly this time around, it would aid the town. There was also a quiet thought in the back of her mind, mostly ignored, that it might lessen the guilt for her if she could do something good for people that didn’t mean sacrificing her family. Cooper had been right before, no matter what she was ready to give up for herself, she wasn’t ready to make that decision for the rest of them yet.
She evened out her breaths, trying to calm her nerves and steel herself enough to go in there, pushing aside all her negative thoughts and those unnecessary to the task ahead. Compartmentalizing was something she felt she could do, had done it for years after all, but it wasn’t working so well this time around.
Feeling Cooper's wide palm on her shoulder made her feel a little better, a lot of anxiety falling away almost immediately. She glanced up at him, wishing he could go inside with her.
He seemed to read her expression, and shook his head.
"I'm really sorry, but this guy came here to see you. I wasn’t there when you made the deal, and my being present might just annoy him. I wish you luck, but you know I have to stay behind."
She did know that. The last time she had Dante with her, but Charleston barely paid attention to him. She could use his support anyway, but she didn’t want to take the time to go and get him, if Michelle allowed him to leave her house anyway.
She sighed, leaning into his hand a bit, and then pulled away, feeling resigned. "I know. I can wish, though. I'll see you soon, okay?"
She got a quick hug, and then he released her. Cooper would wait for her for as long as he thought necessary, and that would have to be enough. Hopefully, she would be walking out with better news.
There didn’t seem to be anyone inside the police station as she walked in, not like there had been the past couple of days. Everyone else must have left once the Mayor arrived, though Clara hadn't seen many of them outside. In a fit to distract herself from her anxiety, she wondered, briefly where they had all gone. But then she was at the door, and she pushed the thought away.
She took another deep breath, and went into the office alone.
He was there, seated with his legs crossed, elbows braced on the chair's arms and fingertips touching under his chin. He was dressed in another suit, imposing even sitting down with his less than impressive physique. She felt like the pressure in the room had just increased, her heartbeat spiking slightly, but she held onto her composure.
Clara and the Mayor regarded each other from their positions across the room, and she kept her head high as she moved to take a seat.
"You went back on our deal," were the first words out of his mouth, a clear accusation.
She held back all the words she wanted to throw at him. Her actions were justified. She had been right not to trust him, after all, but it still made her feel foolish. She should have clarified the terms, her clear inexperience must have shown when she didn’t and he took advantage of it.
"The quality of the produce you sent wasn’t good enough. We're trying to stop people from starving to death, not poison them with bad food."
He sneered, dropping his hands. "I never promised you gourmet food, the deal was a truckload of it. That was what I sent. We are all struggling to find enough to eat."
As if he was struggling, holing up in his office to eat doughnuts.
"I returned the truck," she argued back, in place of what she really wanted to say. "I get struggling to get food, but what you brought would not have been fit for human consumption for very long, if at all. The state it was in, I'm not sure it would have lasted a couple of days."
"It was food you asked for, it was food you got," he said imperiously.
She barely held herself back from snapping at him. "Even so. If the quality of the food you're going to give us in trade is bad, the least you could do is make sure there is more of it."
It wouldn’t be ideal, it would probably be worse. But she was beyond getting anything fresh at this point. If he agreed, he might send the truck right back, when it had been out for another day. She wouldn’t put it past him, anyway.
He gave her an incredulous look, and she returned it with a blank face. After a moment of neither one speaking, he huffed a laugh, but there was nothing humorous in the sound.
"Look lady, that was not our deal. I get you the food, the amount we agreed on, and you get me the gas. We even shook on it. And since you sent my truck back empty handed, I'm going to want more to send it back here."
She narrowed her eyes, feeling a burst of anger. Of course he would stoop that low, she wasn’t even surprised at this point, though she hadn't dealt with him for that long. The total would come up to less than two hours, and it was more than enough for h
er. And he'd just accused her of going back on the deal; now he was asking more for food that wouldn’t last days? That would have them back on his doorstep too soon, asking for more? And even then, it was food that might get people ill.
Right.
"If you don’t want to cooperate, Mayor, you can leave."
He stared at her, and they were both quiet for a couple beats. Then he slapped his hands on his thighs, the sharp sound startling her and making her jump.
"Fine," he said bluntly.
Clara felt her eyes go wide when he stood up, wondering what he was doing now.
No. He couldn’t just leave, she hadn't meant it like that!
But he was getting up and walking away before she could call him back, long, brisk strides that got him out of the room in seconds. She wanted to call him back, get up and rush after him. But she was too shocked at his reaction to react.
In the next moment, though, she was cursing herself, reminding herself she was a novice playing with a shark that had been in the game way too long. She was pretty sure if it came down to it, he would stock up his own supplies if it meant other people, even people of his town, went hungry. He wasn’t even responsible for them, he didn’t answer to them, so it was naïve of her to expect him to break to her rules.
"Dammit!" she cursed again, voice low and vehement. Then she stood, shaken, and left the room to go deliver the bad news.
She walked out to find a couple officers were waiting for the news, looking cautious. When they saw her, they seemed to realize the meeting hadn't gone very well. Another one she recognized approached with Cooper not far behind.
"Ms. Thomas? What happened in there? I just saw the Mayor leaving."
She looked at the man, a little despairing, wanting to beat herself up a little more. But they were waiting for news and she couldn’t just keep quiet about it. Especially when it looked like they had guessed already.
Clara was forced to explain that her trade link was already broken after two days. She told him, haltingly, the details of the agreement and where it went wrong. She didn’t leave anything out to spare herself, so they would know that she had messed up.
The shame she felt doubled when she remembered how proud she had been when she first got the deal. How she'd told her grandmother, feeling all excited about Viola being proud of her, too. She remembered Tessa scowling at her, and wondered if her sister could have predicted this outcome.
Clara could see the obvious disappointment in the officers, the one she was currently working with most of all. They had been depending on this, on her, and she ruined everything by being too eager. It only made her guiltier when she remembered this would affect the rest of the town more than it would her.
He sighed, ran his hands over his face, through his hair, looking tired. "It's fine Ms. Thomas. We were hoping… but you were looking out for the best of this town."
She winced. Looking out for the best of the town? More like having fun with power, assuming getting a foot hold would be enough to back her when she, in reality, had no idea what she was doing. Ha! After her big win, she'd even entertained going into politics. She could laugh at herself for even thinking about it now. She was nowhere near bloodthirsty enough for that. She couldn’t even get teenagers to listen to her.
"But I really feel like—"
"Ma'am, trust me. You don’t need to beat yourself up over this. If the food you got to see was bad, imagine what would have been underneath it. It could have poisoned the whole town, and we don’t have any great medical resources either."
"Yeah. That man has the reputation of being a snake. Unless he can sucker other towns into his deal, he's going to run out of oil and he will need it from somewhere."
The reassurances came as a surprise. She would have thought they would be angry at her for her stupidity. The cop in front of her even gave her a comforting pat on her shoulder.
"What those two said. It's disappointing, but thank you for trying. Don’t give up just because it fell through, there are still plenty other avenues we can look through. Continue with your hard work, you can still help even with the one loss."
She nodded, feeling at a loss for words at the words of encouragement. These people should be mad at her for the mistake she made, she sure as hell was mad at herself. Why couldn’t she seem to do anything right?
Then the officers went their way, and Cooper came up. He'd been close enough to hear the conversation, and she could see the smile on his face ready to give her comfort like usual.
"Hey, Clara. You know you did your best, right?"
She smiled at his attempt to cheer her up, but it was weak and slipped off in the next second. She didn’t deserve any sympathy, not when she was screwing the town twice over.
"I feel like I let the town down, Cooper. That man might have been a snake, but he also might have given us a fighting chance for a while. Where else are we going to get food?"
He rolled his eyes, taking her hand and leading her out of the station. "Don’t think of it like that. At least you're trying to help. There's been some talk about looking for some vehicles in town that might work, having something like that would mean we don’t need to make bad deals, anyway. Things can only improve."
Clara held a less optimistic view on the situation. When would they next be able to get some food? It could take a while, and if it took too long, an already bad situation could only get worse. Traveling farther meant greater risks. If they'd met a snake in their own backyard, they could lose to theft from people farther away, or worse.
Maybe she just wasn’t cut out for this. She wanted to help, but she didn’t feel like she was doing much.
"Maybe I should give up."
She was considering it, but she didn’t realize she'd spoken out loud until Cooper stopped and she looked up to see him frowning down at her.
"That right there is your real problem, Clara."
She frowned back, confused. "What?"
"Giving up. You do that a lot, you know? You gave up your dreams for your family, and I understood that. You gave up on a real relationship, and started an affair with your neighbor's husband. And so many other things, a lot that I don’t even know. Do you know what you really need?"
She opened her mouth, but he didn’t wait for an answer, talking over her and making her frown harder.
"What you need is to let go of your attitude—you wanted to quit your job because of rowdy kids, and now you want to give up on helping out before you've even started. You heard what those cops said, you did good. You didn’t get it in the end, but so what? Look for other avenues, don’t just lie down and play dead. You're so much better than that. You need to start realizing that for yourself."
She stood, speechless, as he talked, feeling her eyes sting. He encouraged her a lot of times, but he had never been this blunt with her. His hands clamped on her shoulders, tight enough to ensure he had her attention. She wanted to tell him he had it anyway, but the lump in her throat wouldn’t let her speak.
"What you really need to do is brush away your failures and insecurities and work on bettering yourself. Every time I think you're falling back into that defeatist attitude, I will remind you of that. You just have to keep moving."
He looked like he was waiting for some kind of confirmation from her, so she managed a nod for him. He smiled again, soft and sweet, and took her hand to lead her back home.
She really couldn’t stop, could she? Leaning on Cooper wasn’t just a problem anymore, she didn’t think she could ever stop. If she wanted to be honest with herself, she would admit she didn’t want to stop. Cooper was the one good thing in her life, the one thing she didn’t have to worry about like everything else. Even when he disagreed with her, he had her back, and Clara couldn’t remember a time since her parents died that she had felt that way.
It was too good of a feeling to let go of.
Inspired by Cooper's pep talk, Clara decided to take his advice. They were going to go home, and the next day, Clara would
be back at the station looking for something else to do.
Chapter Twenty-Six
She had planned to go in for more work, but when she woke up in the morning, she just wasn’t feeling up to it. She hadn't changed her mind, she would go, but later.
For once in her life, Clara made the choice to take a day off.
The concept was somewhat foreign to her. Back when she had school, or a job, she'd kept working non-stop. School did get breaks, which meant there were times she had away from school, as either a student or a teacher. But then she was too used to keeping her body moving, so she just found more things to keep herself busy.
It was the same since after the accident. Clara was pretty sure she hadn't spent a single whole day at home yet, and even there she usually had something to do. But after what she'd seen with Cooper, after her loss with Mayor Charleston, she wanted to stop, if only for a bit. That all of it had happened in the span of one day didn’t make her feel any better. As much as she wanted to help, not give up like Cooper had encouraged her to, she needed some time to regroup before she could be of much use.
Exhausting herself would be the opposite of helpful, after all.
So she decided to take a day to herself—to spend time with her family, because she realized she'd been neglecting them since the EMP strike.
There was a lot to be done at home, and leaving it for everyone else while she went gallivanting off trying to be a hero wasn’t fair. She owed them more than anybody else, so it shouldn’t have been such a difficulty to think of them every once in a while.
When she woke up early, it was to find her grandmother ready to continue with her idea to plant food for them. So Clara went to help Viola out in the garden.
The last time she had gotten her hands so dirty, she had been a child helping out her mother with the flowers. Eventually, she'd grown out of it, but going back to it and remembering the memories brought her some level of peace. There were more important things to think about, but her mind wouldn’t focus on them, and she felt she deserved the break, mentally and physically. Tessa and Cooper were still indoors, Clara wasn’t sure they were even awake, but she was going to let them get up at their own convenience.