by D. Gideon
Mel cocked her head and looked at Marco, then at me with a wink. “Nah. As long as Romeo understand he keeps his hands to himself or he’ll wake up missing parts, I’ll be okay.”
Marco’s eyes got wide. “Maybe I should sleep on the floor,” he said. “I can’t be held responsible for what I do while I’m asleep.”
Melanie made a “pfft” sound and stood up, motioning for Marco to get next to the wall. Without the slightest bit of embarrassment, she pulled down her long skirt and kicked it under the bed. Sitting down on the edge of the bed, she put her hands behind her back and unhooked her bra through her shirt.
Marco watched her pulling her bra straps through her sleeves, and then shook his head when she reached up under her shirt and pulled the whole bra out.
“I’ll never understand how you ladies do that,” he said as she tucked the bra under her pillow.
“Magic,” Mel said, laying down on her side. “Now give me some of the covers before Ginger has a heart attack.”
Josh jerked with a start, and his face flamed red. He’d been watching Mel in a sort of zoned-out trance, but now with everyone grinning at him, he mumbled an apology and stretched himself out on his sleeping bag, turning to face away from us.
I shook my head and stretched out next to Corey. “You’re awful,” I said, chuckling.
“Damn straight, and Romeo better remember that,” Mel shot back.
I lay there, listening to everyone falling off to sleep, staring at the strangely-lit window. If everything went well tomorrow night, we’d drop off Josh at his house, and then be at my house just a few hours later. If this all did turn out to be some freak temporary blackout, we could just drive back Monday night and start classes the next morning. After Mel and Leandra’s description of their drive home though, I had my doubts. I just wanted to leave now.
I was in the middle of making a mental list of Mel’s things that we’d need to pack up in the morning when I finally drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER 8
Saturday, September 1st
Snow Hill, Maryland
Dotty downshifted Thomas’ little Ford Ranger into first gear and leaned to the side, trying to see what was holding up the line of cars. She needed to get to the Food Rite and had planned to be there as soon as they opened their doors, but for some reason traffic was backed up. Maybe there was a power line down across the road past the store; the morning light had revealed that many of the power lines in town had either sagged or broken off of the poles to lay on the ground the night before. Only the stores and homes that had generators had power, and she knew that Food Rite had installed one for the coastal hurricanes.
Checking back over her shoulder, she pulled onto the shoulder and carefully drove past the line of cars. She received more than a few honks from people who thought she was trying to cut in line, but she just smiled, waved, and kept going. After turning into an adjoining parking lot and driving through it to reach Food Rite, she was surprised to find the cars were backed up in a line to purchase gas from the grocery store’s small gas depot. Thomas had tossed a few gas cans into the truck’s covered bed with instructions to fill them up on her way home so they could fuel the Millers’ generator, but it hadn’t occurred to her that everyone else would have the same idea.
Glancing at the price sign on her way in the door, she quickly calculated. Between filling the Ranger’s tank and the gas cans, she’d need to leave about fifty dollars to the side to pay for the fuel. At least Aadarsh, or Abe as he told the locals to call him, wasn’t price gouging. She’d driven past one gas station in the center of town that had already raised prices by a dollar; the state had a law against price gouging but with the Sheriff’s deputies busy blocking roads for downed power lines, some store owners would risk it until someone threatened to complain.
A large chalkboard sign just inside the door said “CASH & CHECKS ONLY - debit/credit system is down”, and Dotty shook her head at her lack of forethought. She never used checks anymore except when paying the bills, but if she had brought her checkbook with her, she could have written some against the deposit that would be coming on Tuesday and saved her emergency cash. Still, she was almost certain that deposit wouldn’t be coming, and she didn’t want to write a check that would never get cashed. It was too much like stealing. Taking a cart and settling her purse into the top basket, she headed for the baking aisle.
She stacked bags of all-purpose flour into her cart and then looked up, hunting for the baking powder. Finding it, she added a box to her cart and added up the total in her head. She had these things at home, but today she was stocking up because her gut told her to. Even if this turned out to be nothing, she’d still use these items over the coming year; she wasn’t here to buy anything frivolous.
“Dotty, you’re just shopping in advance,” she muttered. “You’d need to buy this stuff eventually anyway. If the power comes back on, you just won’t need to buy it for a while, is all.” She nodded and re-arranged her purse to sit more straight in the cart’s basket. The words did little to calm her worries. The cash she’d pulled out of the can over the fridge was the entirety of her emergency fund, and without it, something as simple as a blown tire would mean Thomas couldn’t get to work. If he couldn’t get to work, they wouldn’t be able to meet the bills…
With a deep breath and a shake of her head, Dotty forced herself out of that line of thinking. Nothing good would come from second-guessing herself. If she was right, now wasn’t the time to get paralyzed with doubt. Things would sort themselves out in the end; they always did. If things stayed normal and they needed the money she was about to spend, she’d find a way to make do. She was good at that.
Next on the list was a box of salt and a few three-pound jars of coconut oil. With what was in the cart and some water, she could easily make her mother’s Great Depression biscuits for months to come. Mama had used lard, but that was hard to come by these days with the price of meat going up, and coconut oil stayed good for years without going rancid. They might not be the fluffiest biscuits around, but they’d fill tummies.
In the next aisle over she pulled down bags of dried split peas and dried beans, rice, and macaroni noodles. She could make pea soup, red beans and rice, and put the pasta with the tomatoes she’d already canned over the summer. If this turned out to be nothing, these items would all keep forever as long as they stayed dry.
Swinging around the end of the aisle, she noticed a couple of other shoppers browsing through the refrigerated sections. A woman she didn’t recognize had a cart half full of frozen food, to which she was adding a gallon of milk—like it was any normal shopping trip. The woman looked up and caught Dotty’s confused stare.
“I’m sorry, is something wrong?” The woman asked.
Dotty blinked and waved a hand. “Oh, no…I was just—well, isn’t your power out? I’m over on Washington Street and all the power’s out between there and here.”
The woman nodded. “I live over across the bridge and ours is out, too. Doesn’t it figure? I’ve got a Labor Day party to cook for, and my stove isn’t working.”
“That’s what confused me; all of that frozen food with no power? Ain’t you afraid it’ll go bad?”
“I’m not worried about that,” the woman said, flapping her hand as if brushing away the thought. “These wings’ll have to thaw anyway, so I’ll just keep ‘em in a cooler ‘till they get the power back on.”
“That might be a while,” Dotty said. “There’s lines down all over town.”
“I saw that,” the woman said. “Must've been some strong winds that came through last night or something. We've got underground lines in our development, so I’d be surprised if it’s not back up by tonight at my house.”
“As long as they get it turned back on in time for the game on Monday, I’m good,” a man said, walking up and dumping an armload of packaged lunch meats into the cart. Dotty recognized him as a customer from the hardware store, but didn’t know his name. “But if it�
�s not up by Monday morning, you’d best believe I’ll be calling the power company and pitching a fit.”
The woman looked at the lunch meat with a critical expression. “You think that’s enough for the sandwiches? It doesn’t look like much.”
“I’ve got six pounds there, all different kinds,” her husband said. “With potato and macaroni salad, that should be enough, shouldn’t it?”
The woman made a doubtful face and shook her head. “Go get some more, just in case. If we don’t use it, we can always freeze it for the kids’ school lunches.” Sighing, her husband turned and headed back for the lunch meats.
“But, what about the weird lights in the sky last night?” Dotty said. "What if the power doesn't come back on?"
“That was probably just some heat lightning or something. Look, it’s gotta come back on sometime, right? Every hour it’s out the power company’s losing tons of money. Believe you me, they’ll be busting their asses to get it back up and running. Just like when a hurricane comes through.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Dotty said, giving up. There’d be no changing this couple’s minds. They were sure the power was going to come back on simply because it always had. She wasn’t even sure it wouldn’t come back on, so what right did she have to judge this woman?
None at all, she told herself. You just go on and mind your own business.
"I know I'm right," the woman said, pushing her cart even with Dotty. "We live on the Eastern Shore. We're used to weird weather. Remember when the ice was crawling up the beach in Ocean City like it was alive? Or back when a few inches of ice was covering everything in Baltimore and we were here sunning it up in the high 50s and not a drop of snow in sight?”
“You’re right, you’re right,” Dotty said, nodding. “We even had hail early this summer when it was nearly 80 degrees out.”
“Yep. So don’t you worry. This is just another one of those freak Eastern Shore things, and in a few days we’ll be laughing about it.” The woman reached over and patted Dotty’s hand in reassurance. Her eyes fell on Dotty’s cart and her brows went up with a smile. “Looks like you’re stocking up for a party of your own.”
Dotty’s stomach dropped and her thoughts raced. If the power didn’t come back on, would this couple remember the lady in the grocery store bugging them about it? She had mentioned what street she lived on, hadn’t she? Would they remember she had a cart full of food that wouldn’t spoil and come looking for it? She suddenly had the feeling she’d made a grave mistake.
“Oh, this? It’s my turn to shop for the church kitchen. We expect to have a lot of folks coming in for meals this weekend, what with social security deposits not coming until Tuesday and all,” Dotty said. The lie rolled so easily off of her tongue.
Lord Jesus, forgive me. I don’t know where that came from.
“Well I’d best let you get to it then, can’t keep the church ladies waiting! I hear they can get pretty ornery if you mess with their kitchen,” the woman said, still smiling.
“That’s putting it mildly,” Dotty said. “You take care now. Good luck with your party.”
“Thanks! You too,” the woman said, and Dotty hurriedly pushed her cart to the other end of the small store and around the corner by the meat department, where she was out of sight of the couple.
“Dorothy Parker, what has gotten into you?” She muttered to herself, rearranging the bags of beans in her cart with more than a little force. “First you’re running around spending your emergency cash like a darned fool, and now you’ve gone and told a lie! About the church, no less! If Nate were here, he’d-“
She stopped. Nate wasn’t here. It was just her and the boys now, and she and her daughter had promised each other they’d do whatever it took to get those boys out of Baltimore’s ghetto and keep them safe.
“Nate would tell you God would understand,” she said, fingers rubbing the cross on her necklace.
“Talking to yourself, Miss Dotty? I read on Facebook that that’s a sure sign of genius.”
Dotty jumped and turned to see Mark, the meat department manager, standing behind her with a tall rolling cart. He must’ve come through the swinging doors and in her state, she hadn’t even heard him.
“Whoa now, didn’t mean to startle you,” he said. He glanced at her trembling hand, still holding the cross. “Miss Dotty? You okay?”
Dotty blew out a breath and smiled. “It’s just that weird sky last night, Mark, and the power being out. It’s got me more than a little riled up.”
“It’s got everyone riled up,” Mark said, maneuvering the rack around her and reaching into the meat case. He began pulling out steaks and stacking them on the rack’s shelves. “Abe just came back here, fit to be tied. He wants me to pull all the meat out of the open cabinets and find room for them in the walk-in cooler. He’s freaking out.”
“If it’s not out here, how will you sell it?”
“Beats me. It’s gotta go, though. The generator can’t handle all the drain we’re putting on it. He’s turning off the open coolers in the hopes it will give the gas pumps full power. Those folks wanting gas are getting pretty pissy—excuse my french—about being in line for half an hour because the pumps are going so slow.”
“Well that makes sense, I guess,” Dotty said, watching him move on to the roasts. On the far end of the meat department, a young girl came out of the deli with a similar cart and hurried to the cheese case.
“It does if you have room, but my department depends on having these cases. With all the extras we ordered for Labor Day weekend, I’m not going to have room for all of this, much less the lunch meats and sausages,” he said, gesturing back the way Dotty had come.
“So it’ll end up spoiling?”
Mark shrugged as he bent over the case. “I’ll do my best to pack it all in there, but like I told Abe, I can’t make any guarantees. A lot of that pre-packaged stuff comes in waxed cardboard boxes, kinda like coolers. I’m thinking I’ll have to use some of those and top them off with ice.” He stopped, lifting a couple of roasts as if in offering. “I don’t suppose you’d want to add a few hundred pounds of meat to all that stuff?”
Dotty chuckled. “Oh I’d love to, Mark, but I’m shopping for the church. I just can’t squeeze it into the budget.” There it was again, that little white lie.
Mark cocked his head. “The church, huh?” He put the roasts on the rack and wiped his hands on his apron. “I tell you what. I’ve got a bulk party order back there taking up space that I sure could use. The Warden was supposed to pick it up yesterday evening but he never showed. I could sell it to you for a discount?” He said, a hopeful note in his voice.
“I couldn’t, Mark. I’ve only got so much to spend and beef is so expensive-“
“It’s chicken,” Mark interrupted. “It was a great deal to start with, ‘cause we had everyone place their orders last week and then I did a bulk buy.” He pointed at a sign taped to the sliding windows over the case. “It’s a bag of boneless breasts and two bags of thighs. I’ll give it to you…for half off the bulk price?”
Dotty looked at the sign and blinked. The party orders were forty pounds each. At the bulk price, thirty-two dollars for the breasts and thirty-five each for the thighs, it really was a steal. At half of that, she’d be crazy not to take him up on the offer. She could can all of that chicken, then use the bones to make stock and can that, as well.
“What if the Warden comes in today to pick up his order?” She asked, stalling while calculating how many jars she’d need and trying to remember how many empty jars she had in her basement. She’d already planned on using those to can what was in the chest freezer, but maybe-
“He knew the pick-up date, so it’s his loss. I’ll just refund his money. Serves him right, anyway. My sister Jen has been working at the jail since Sheriff Kane was the warden, and last week Dale passed her over for a promotion and gave it to this young girl that’s only been there for six months. Said she was more qualified.” H
e held his hands in front of his chest and wiggled them. “I guess having a chest out to here counts as a qualification now.”
Dotty clucked her tongue. “That’s a shame. You know, Pastor Bill’s been going over there for years to minister to the prisoners, and he won’t say outright, but I get the feeling he liked it a lot better back when Simon was running things.”
“I don’t doubt it,” Mark said. “So what do you say? You’ll be doing me a favor, clearing off a whole shelf for me, and I’m sure the church can use it. Plus you’ll help me stick it to that assho—sorry, that jerk Dale Gooden.”
“I still need to get some gas,” Dotty started, but Mark cut her off.
“I can box it up for you, ice and everything. I’ll even carry it out for you,” Mark said. Beside them, the soft hum of the cabinet coolers went silent.
“Shit!” The young girl emptying out the cheese cooler said. Her rack’s shelves were a mis-matched cluster of wobbly, triangular blocks of cheese. “I’m not ready yet, Abe!” She called out.
“Do the best you can,” Abe’s clipped Indian accent came from the other side of the small store. “Traffic’s backed up to Park Row in one direction, and Timmons in the other. It’s even starting to back up on Burroughs Street. I need those pumps going full speed!”
“Either you buy it for the church and do some good with it, or I’m pulling it out and letting it spoil. I need that shelf space for meat we’ll actually make some profit on, Miss Dotty,” Mark said.
“Let it spoil? Mark, that’s just foolish. Why not just take it over to the church and donate it?”
“Can’t,” Mark said. “Safety regs; we’re not allowed to donate raw meat unless it’s frozen, and even then we’ve got to prove it never went above freezing while it was being transported. It’s stupid, I know, but they’ll shut us down quicker than you can say ‘politicians’. I’ve gotta sell it or throw it out. I’ve got no choice.”
Dotty nodded. “Okay. All right. I’ll take it. It’ll be a tight squeeze on the budget, but I’ll take it.”