by Maddy Barone
While Bree was getting her mother tucked behind a curtain with a small brazier on the floor by her cot and a guard outside the curtain, people began pouring in. The men were sent off to help with the rest of the setup, while the women went to the kitchen area to drop off their dishes. Lisa accompanied them to the kitchen where stoves were lit to heat the food. She knew only a few of them, but she was familiar with the poorly hidden spite they showed toward her.
“Let me help you with that,” she offered when one girl’s Dutch oven wobbled in her arms.
“No, thank you.” The girl jerked away from Lisa’s helping hand. Baked beans overflowed the pot and ran down the side. “I wouldn’t want to bother you.”
The words were polite; the tone was a sneer. All her life Lisa had had to deal with the dislike of other women, but that usually stemmed from her looks. Here she wasn’t considered beautiful. Certainly she was no threat to their generous charms.
Hannah came in with another woman who was probably around Bree’s age. Lisa went to them with a smile, glad to see a familiar and friendly face. “Hello, Hannah. Are those twice baked potatoes? I love those. I haven’t had those in months. They smell so good!”
The younger woman with Hannah sniffed. “I heard you couldn’t cook.”
Some other girls heard her and giggled, shooting looks of malicious glee at Lisa.
Hannah gasped. “Ruth! Don’t be rude. Lisa, this is my cousin, Ruth Lemke.”
Lisa pasted on a serene smile. “Hello, Ruth. I’m certainly not up to my mother-in-law’s level, but I’m learning. Eddie hasn’t complained about my cooking yet.”
Lisa moved away as if she didn’t notice the covert sneers. One woman had a pair of young teen girls on either side of her and an older teen behind her. She smiled at Lisa.
“Mrs. Madison, you may not remember me. I’m Anne Gray. We met at Mrs. Wolfe’s concert at the library a few months ago.”
The memory warmed Lisa. “I do remember you. How have you been?”
“Well, very well. This is my daughter, Elizabeth, and my daughter, Amy. And this shy little thing is my niece, Eleanor.”
Eleanor bounced with high spirits, not looking very shy, until she saw Ruth looking at her with a sneer. “Hello,” she said, a wash of color staining her pale cheeks.
Lisa smiled back. People like Ruth were bullies. As a famous model with an army of fans, Lisa knew she should be beyond being hurt by people like her, but wealth, beauty, and fame couldn’t erase a childhood full of sneers.
“I think we’ve met before.” Lisa nodded at the brown-haired girl. “You’re Ellie, right? Taye Wolfe’s cousin?”
Some of the bounce came back. “Yes. I don’t think he’s coming today since Cousin Carla isn’t well, but Neal will be here. He’s my fiancé.”
Good lord, the girl was tiny, just five feet tall, and she couldn’t be old enough to be getting married. Lisa hid those thoughts behind another smile. “I hope you have a wonderful time today.”
“Oh, I will! I’m from Odessa, and in Odessa the elders don’t allow big parties like this.”
Lisa remembered the sour elders who had sent her and Carla off to be sold to the mayor of Kearney. Their idea of fun was probably a five-hour long sermon against dancing.
Hannah joined them. In a low voice she said, “I’m so sorry. Ruth has always been like that, and too many of the other girls are following her lead. It’s no wonder she’s still unmarried at twenty.”
Lisa managed a smile and made herself go back to deciding which pot or pan should be heated on which stove. These girls were more hurtful than the models Lisa worked with, and models were the cruelest people Lisa had ever known.
When Eddie came in, all the sneering young women melted into sweetness. Ah, Lisa said to herself cynically, jealousy was at the root of their meanness. Any of these girls would have been pleased to marry the mayor’s son. To have a stranger snatch him away must have put their noses out of joint. Pity.
Eddie nodded at them, but with nothing more than casual politeness. “Lisa, where’s my mother?”
“She’s lying down for a nap. Eddie, can I talk to you for a second?”
A shadow of impatience crossed his face. He jerked his head to indicate the hallway. She hurried past him out the door, ignoring the other women. He crossed his arms over his chest. “What?”
“I’ve wanted to talk to you all week, but you’ve been…” She backed away from accusing him of ignoring her. “Busy. Eddie, I love you. If you want to keep your secret to yourself, fine.” She looked blindly at his shoulder, not willing to look into his face and see the coldness he’d worn since their visit to the den. “I hope you’ll tell me someday, but I won’t mention it again.”
“You have to get into this now?”
The annoyance in his voice bruised her. “When else can I do it?” She tried to rein in the snap in her voice. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to you before. Eddie, I’ve missed you. We have to talk about it.”
He took a step back. “We’ll talk later. I have to get back.”
Lisa watched him walk away, pain swirling into angry nausea in her stomach. She went back to the cats in the kitchen, feeling like she’d just been slapped in the face. Why was she putting up with his infantile attitude? She was his wife, for God’s sake, not one of the pets he collected and neglected. This had to end. Now wasn’t the time to run after him and slap him silly, but when they got home, she would make Eddie listen to her. She would force him to see how much it hurt her every time he turned away from her.
Bree came in only a few minutes later, followed by Renee, Connie, and Marissa from the Plane Women’s House, and Lisa was glad to give up command in the kitchen to Renee, who had been a chef in St. Paul’s most fashionable restaurant. Renee had been injured in the plane crash, the side of her face scarred and slightly misshapen from the accident, and the girls might have seen her as a target for their bullying, but Renee looked them up and down with unimpressed eyes and put them to work.
She stood beside Lisa and shook her head. “You might think, with so few women here, they’d get along better.”
Lisa shrugged, feeling a little more comfortable. “It’s like high school in a small town. Everyone knows everyone else, and there’s always the bully who has to make life miserable for the rest.”
Val, another of the plane crash survivors, came up and nodded. “No kidding. We had only eighty in my graduating class, and there were four girls who were so mean one of the girls they picked on tried to commit suicide.”
Ellie’s eyes were wide. “What happened to them?”
“Nothing.” Val tucked a strand of her shoulder length brown hair behind her ear. “The laws against bullying hadn’t taken effect yet. What would happen here?”
“Nothing,” Ellie sighed.
Bree agreed. “If they were boys, they might get sent to Faron Paulson, and he’d thrash them. But not girls. No one punishes girls except their dads.”
“Spoiled brats,” Renee muttered. She directed a glare at Ruth and her friends and raised her voice to be heard over the giggling. “Move it, chickies. Other people need to use that stove too.”
Lisa swallowed a giggle at Ruth’s wide-eyed expression of outrage. Eventually, under Renee’s experienced and firm hand, all the food was properly heated and ready to serve by late afternoon. Food was carried out of the kitchen to the long buffet tables in the large entry area. The windows were now framed in frost. It was pretty. Lisa carried her pies to the tables set aside for desserts.
“Here, put your stuff next to mine,” Bree urged her. “Mom can’t stand by me, so you have to be my chaperone.”
“Chaperone?”
Bree rolled her eyes. “All the men flirt with the servers when they come through the line. Single girls shouldn’t be alone.”
Right. Alone, with a hundred other women and a thousand men. Lisa imitated her sister-in-law and rolled her eyes. She’d forgotten the women were expected to serve the food they brought. “I
’m starving.”
“Me too. Let’s hurry and get our plates so we can eat quick before the line starts. I want to check on Mom too.”
Each person had brought their own plates, silverware, and glasses. Paper plates didn’t exist anymore. Lisa reflected that her conservationist friends would approve. The women ate first, while the men hung around outside in the cold. Through the large windows, Lisa could see Eddie standing with Cory and some other young men. Val sat close to Lisa and sighed over Cory. Over the past few months, Lisa had gotten to know Cory. Her first impression of him had been a lanky, geeky intellectual with brown hair in a haphazard buzz cut, and he was still all those things, but Lisa now knew he was more. His sense of humor was goofy, he was loyal and protective, and though he didn’t talk much, one of his favorite subjects was Val.
“You know,” Val remarked, “Cory is a great guy. I hope he pops the question tonight.”
“Lots of people get married at the Gala,” Bree said. “I think there will be at least four weddings this time.”
Hannah was looking down the table at her cousin with a frown. “And at least two or three fights. Ruth just loves to play one man off another, and it always end up in a fight. I wish Uncle Bob would just pick someone for her.”
Renee chewed her barbecued pork with a considering look on her face. “I wonder which spices they used for this? Bree, who made the meat?”
They were talking about weddings, and Renee had her mind on cooking. Lisa had to smile because it was so like Renee to be thinking about cooking and not romance. Her husband was a tall, muscular, quiet werewolf named Hawk, and he was just about the only person who could pull Renee away from the kitchen.
Lisa’s smile died because through the window she could see Eddie laughing and having a good time with his friends. He hadn’t laughed or smiled at her in a week. He’d barely spoken to her. The one night this week he’d slept in their bed, he’d been very careful to not touch her and had been gone when she woke up. There had been no conversation between them, so she never had the chance to apologize. She wanted to make things right between them. She also wanted to slap him.
With Bree on one side of her and Hannah on the other, Lisa served her pie to the line of men who shuffled past, some of them shy, some bold, some flirtatiously commenting on how sweet her pie looked. She was uncomfortable with the flirtation, but Bree and Hannah flirted right back.
“It’s okay,” Bree told her. “It’s expected here.”
Hannah agreed. “As long as it doesn’t go too far, it’s acceptable to flirt at the Gala.”
“I don’t think Eddie would like it,” Lisa mumbled, cutting into her second pie.
Bree snorted. “Don’t worry about Eddie, just have fun.”
When Lisa noticed how her husband avoided their section of the dessert table and asked for a slice of cake from one of Ruth’s silly cow friends, she decided to take Bree’s advice. This was a party. She would enjoy herself. She smiled at every man who asked for her pie.
The line of men gradually dwindled, and the girls went into the arena to join friends and family at the long tables. The arena was filled with the roar of men laughing and talking, the clink of flatware against plates, and the squealing scrape of chairs on the floor. The head table was on a raised platform a little apart from the others, like the bridal party table at a wedding. Ray and Darlene sat there alone, although there were three other chairs. Eddie wasn’t there. Lisa looked for him and found his golden head at a table with his friends and some ladies. Val was beside Cory, smiling at him as they talked.
Sitting beside Eddie was Ruth who, Lisa saw with a stab of rage, was all but plastered against his side. He accused her of flirting with Dane, but he was practically snuggling with another woman? Bree’s hand on her arm was the only thing that kept her from rushing over to kick Eddie and slap Ruth’s smug face.
“Eddie doesn’t like it,” Bree whispered. “See?”
Eddie wasn’t smiling, and his body leaned away from Ruth. Lisa calmed.
“Come on, Lisa. If we sit at the table with Mom and Dad, he can use us as an excuse to leave her.”
Lisa went with Bree to the head table and sat down beside her mother-in-law. “How are you feeling?”
“Still a bit tired, but better,” Darlene replied. “Have you had enough to eat?”
“I’m stuffed.” Lisa scanned the tables, looking for Eddie. He was still with his friends, Ruth sitting too close. So much for him needing an excuse to be able to leave her. “Can I get you anything?”
“No, thank you. What on earth is Eddie doing down there? He should be sitting up here. Lisa, go fetch him.”
She went down the three steps to the arena floor and threaded her way through the tables to where her husband sat. A man she hadn’t met gave her a brilliant smile. She automatically smiled back as she passed him. Ruth now had her hand on Eddie’s thigh. Before Lisa could say anything, Eddie stood up. He sent a murderous look at the man who’d smiled at her before his face smoothed to blandness.
“I have to run to check the horses one more time,” he told Lisa. “I shouldn’t be gone too long. Save me a dance.”
A week ago he would have sounded regretful and given her a kiss. Lisa smothered the words she wanted to say. “All right, I’ll let your mother know.”
She ignored Ruth, nodded at Val and Cory, and went back to the Madison table. “He has to go out on vet business, but he’ll be back,” she reported.
Darlene glanced at her son’s back as he threaded his way through the crowd. “Is something wrong between you and Eddie?”
For a moment Lisa thought about telling Darlene she’d overheard her telling Eddie she couldn’t be trusted. But her mother-in-law looked tired and sick. She shook her head. “No, just the usual little conflicts newlyweds have,” she said vaguely. “I suppose it’s about time for us to get started on the dishes.”
Darlene’s eyebrows rose. “The men do the dishes. They take care of all the cleanup at the Gala. But first, we need to hand out the annuities. Ray? Are you ready?”
“You bet.” Ray waved his arm and picked up a megaphone that had been tucked under the table. “Ladies and gentlemen of Kearney!” he bellowed through the horn. “Can I have your attention, please?”
The crowd quieted slowly, and when they had, he went on. “This has been a very good year for Kearney. We’ve had no deaths, but six babies were born, one of them a girl. Three more babies are expected in the next couple months. And…” He paused for dramatic effect. “Two dozen unmarried women have been added to our community this year. ’Course, they’re not likely to stay single, now are they, gentlemen?”
The crowd hollered and clapped and pounded the tables like they’d just been told their football team had won the Superbowl.
“The harvest was good for our neighbors, and we were able to pay our taxes in full thanks to the Bride Fights a few months ago.” Ray bowed theatrically to Lisa, and then a smaller bow to a narrow, well-groomed man sitting at a nearby table with a black-haired woman dressed in a low cut, too-tight, red dress beside him. “Peter Vann has already collected the taxes, and he and his men and his friend, Miss Merritt, have stayed on to celebrate with us.”
The applause was decidedly cooler. Lisa craned her head to examine the vice mayor, and wondered if “vice” was part of his title like vice president, or if he was in charge of vice in Omaha. After months of living in a prairie town where people earned their living with hard work, Lisa thought the man from Omaha looked too slick and polished to be trustworthy.
Ray was a good speaker. He was inspiring, sometimes amusing, encouraging, and best of all, brief. After a ten minute speech on the state of Kearney, he went on to call names. As each family came forward, he spoke to them privately, thanking them for what they specifically did for Kearney, and handed the head of the house a slip of paper.
“A voucher,” Darlene explained in a quiet voice to Lisa. “Each family is given a written list of things they can come to us to rec
eive during the next few months.”
“Like what?” Lisa was fascinated. Was this taxation in reverse? Instead of paying taxes to the mayor, the mayor paid taxes to them?
“Seed, fabric, dried beef, things like that. It depends on how much work they do for the town, like working on street maintenance and snow removal. Yes, the people of Kearney do pay a tax. Faron Paulson and his policemen and Steve Herrick and his workers have to be paid, but we give back to the taxpayers for their labor.”
Interesting system. Lisa doubted it would ever have worked in the Times Before. When it was done, the women flocked to the locker rooms to change while the men washed dishes. Darlene was already wearing the dress Lisa had given her for Christmas, so she sent Bree and Lisa off to change.
The locker rooms were dimly lit with lanterns, and they were freezing cold. None of the women tarried while changing except Lisa, and she hurried through putting her hair into a sleek French twist and applying a light layer of makeup. In the locker room, Bree waited for her, shivering with cold and impatience, while Lisa looked at her uneven reflection in the mirror critically. She didn’t look like herself. She was neither the glamorous model she had been nor the hardworking wife she’d become. The dress fit beautifully. She thought she looked very, well, a new, more elegant version of Lisa Madison.
“You look great,” Bree said with obvious sincerity. “But can we go now? I’m freezing!”
They left the locker room to go back upstairs to the warmth of the arena with its big braziers and standing lamp holders. Steve Herrick was waiting for them in the hall outside the locker room.
“You look very pretty, Mrs. Madison and Miss Madison,” he said, teasing them with gentle gallantry. “May I escort you ladies to the ball?”
Bree giggled when he bowed and took one of the arms he crooked for them. “I suppose Mom sent you to guard us. She’s afraid someone will steal us from the Gala.”
“Well, it’s not likely,” Steve said, walking them up the stairs. “But it could happen. Always better safe than sorry, right?”