There is a loud knock on the door, startling me. Slipping to the peephole I see a dark skinned female face looking back. She pounds the door again, causing me to jerk back.
“Open it,” Izzy blurts out.
“Who is it?”
“Dinner delivery,” she promises, setting the second bag on the sink. “Just open the door.”
When the door opens a caramel skinned lady smiles back, but then looks me up and down in a confused way. Her hair is long and braided with beads woven in. She’s holding something, but it’s obscured under a newspaper. I’m about to open my mouth, when Izzy steps in front of me and holds out the tampons. The woman nods, handing her the newspaper in return. Izzy backs up and shuts the door without saying a word. Clearly the particulars of this deal were hammered out earlier.
“What did we get in exchange for the feminine hygiene products?”
She pulls the newspaper away revealing an already open box of Uncle Bens Minute rice. It’s the brown rice, which I don’t favor, but the thought of hot food does get my stomach growling. The only thing is I am not sure how to boil the water in this room? Can I start a fire outside and do it without drawing a crowd?
“It’s a little to al dente for my taste,” I remark, wiggling the box between two fingers. “I’ll assume you already know how we’re going to boil water?”
“Have that covered,” she promises, pulling one of the backpacks onto the spare bed.
She unzips a compartment at the bottom and pulls out a green metal box. Setting it on the bed, she opens it to reveal a Coleman mini gas grill. Reaching an arm in the pack, she digs around until she comes out with a blue thermos sized can that contains the propane gas. Next, she pulls out a camping lantern that I assume runs on batteries. It glows to life, illuminating the room in yellow. With the patio sliders almost completely blocked off, the light is a happy addition for me.
“You had this all along?”
“We didn’t need it until now,” she suggests, setting it up on the flimsy pressboard desk.
I watch as she pulls a tiny sauce pan out of the backpack and goes to the bathroom. I am about to make a joke about the water not working, but then recall she ran the tub full the night she got here. I have to admit she’s a step ahead of the curve on everything. She comes back with the pan and sets it on the grill. Pulling a cheap plastic lighter from her front pocket, she turns a little knob and flicks. There’s a pop and a tiny blue flame glows under the mesh screen. Seeming happy with herself, she tells me to watch the water while she changes. The pot boils slowly and she returns long before I add the rice.
She’s wearing shorts and a tee shirt I haven’t seen before and assume she did some additional clothes shopping. She’s dragging a brush through her tangled hair and wincing. Watching her, I am happy to be a man with short hair. I run my hand over my chin and notice the two-day old stubble. I hate beards with a passion. I make a note to try and find some disposable razors.
“Add the rice,” she alerts me, pointing at the desk.
I toss in a random amount and stir with a chop stick Izzy picked up yesterday before the Chinese place closed its doors. I notice she’s turned over to the other bag and is reading the label on the shampoo.
“Bubble gum toothpaste sounds good. Are you going to wash your hair?”
“Tomorrow in the pool if people haven’t defiled it too much. If not, the ocean will do.”
“Tub’s full of fresh water.”
“Let’s hang on to that for now.”
The rice boils and we make small talk while we dine with plastic forks from the coffee shop. Izzy picked up some butter packets that were supposed to be for breakfast customers and even some salt. Thank God for our throw away fast food culture. We make a second batch, empting the box and end the day full and happy.
The sun goes down and we prop the door open for some air. A light rain has begun to fall, cooling it off quite a bit, although it’s still in the eighties. I’m looking out the door at the empty street wondering where everyone went to get out of the rain when it hits me.
“Won’t you be needing those?” I ask and then pause looking for a better word than tampon.
“Nope,” she chirps. “Being a tour guide puts an end to most of that. Since total body eradiation my periods are pretty light.”
I am surprised she jumped right to the Travel Agency answer as in the past I had to press her for anything in this area. What does she mean by total body eradiation? I am pondering this when she notices the silence.
“Not looking for a big family I hope?” she remarks in a tone that starts out strong, but waivers a bit at the end.
“No,” I respond quickly, then pausing to frame my inquiry. “Let me ask you this. If you can’t go back, why would you take a job as a tour guide? What on Earth could they pay you to make this look good?”
“They aren’t paying me. They are paying my parents.”
“How so?”
“You don’t have any context for what things are like where I’m from,” she explains. “But there are a lot more have-nots than haves. In that respect, it’s not much different than now. I got into what you would define as the military just to get a roof over my head. Of course then this wonderful opportunity came along,” she pauses and rolls her eyes to indicate the opportunity wasn’t that appealing. “They offer to take care of my parents in exchange for me signing up.”
“So, you just met Lance at the Travel Agency water cooler?” I blurt out, wishing I hadn’t said it even before it got to my ears. “Or did you just draw the short straw?”
“No,” she frowns at me, wrinkling her nose. “I was living with him when he got offered the gig.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want answered,” she lectures. “Our relationship wasn’t going anywhere and I would have moved out, but there wasn’t anywhere for me to move to. They offer Lance this gig and I am thinking that it’s perfect. Lances goes away and never comes back.”
“Quite literally,” I add.
“Correct,” she nods. “Then he tries to recruit me to go. I have no interest in being a one-way tour guide, but Lance brings my parents into it.”
“How so?”
“He offered to sweeten my deal. Lance has no family, so he offers to pledge his money for my parents,” she raises an eyebrow and shrugs. “One second-tier Tour Guide pays pretty well. My folks could have gotten a decent place just inside the wall, but—.”
“The wall?” I cut in. “What wall?”
“Haves inside the wall, have-nots outside the wall,” she clarifies. “Have you never read a book or seen a movie?”
“Sounds bleak,” I express.
“Bleak is a matter of perspective.”
“I’ll take your word for it. You were telling me about Lance?”
“Right, the payout for an Expedition Leader is a whole lot more dough. Mom and Pop can live anywhere in the city now.”
“But you’re stuck with Lance?”
“Yes, I am,” she sighs. “But well worth the hassle to take care of the ones you love.”
“Without what I assume is a tricky sexual component between you and Lance,” I suggest and pause.
“Look who’s talking,” she smirks. “All men come with a tricky sexual component. Don’t go blaming that on Lance.”
“Just out of curiosity why is it a one-way job,” I beg. “If you can come here, why can’t you go back?”
“I hope you’re not looking for a deeply scientific answer.”
“They had to have told you something.”
“Right, well, it’s really not hard to grasp. Every time they send someone through--.”
“By send through, you mean to the past?” I interrupt.
“Yes, when a team goes through its opens up a new timeline. It’s unique and no other time jump can access it.”
“How so?”
“Think about it. If every time we sent a team through they landed right next to the last te
am that would be a huge mess,” she groans. “I came through; this is a separate timeline that’s locked. If they sent another team a week later to the same spot they’d open a new timeline that’s locked for them. They would never see us.”
“And you would never change the future in your own timeline,” I postulate, “leaving no danger of a paradox.”
To this she doesn’t answer, just wags her head slowly back and forth as if she’s trying to choose her answer from several options. The pause is ominous. Was my accretion incorrect?
“Paradox,” she hums slowly. “Look at you talking like a tour guide.”
I watch her eyes focus just to my left as if frozen there. Her pupils twitch and then she looks directly at me wearing a half smile. What is she not telling me?
“Don’t worry about a Paradox,” she assures me. “It’s a one-way trip. Every time they send a team it’s like the first time.”
She seems sincere, although talking about her parents and Lance seems to have worn her out a bit. Maybe worn out are the wrong words. It’s more like softened. I am a big believer in taking things with a grain of salt. If she’s suggests she wasn’t in love with Lance, then that’s fine. As an outside observer I have to assume part of that answer is unconsciously skewed to the person she told. Given this belief, I come to the conclusion that the truth is somewhere in the middle. She’s not into Lance now, but she probably was. More importantly, what happens when we get back?
“Hey, what did you trade your smokes for?” she pokes me with a finger breaking my train of thought.
“Dessert,” I reveal, pulling the chocolate doughnuts from under my hoodie at the end of the bed.
Her eyes light up and she snatches them out of my hand. She peels open the end and tosses one in her mouth immediately. A moan and then the smile of a stuffed mouth stare back at me.
“I’ll take that as you approving of the trade balance.”
“Actually,” she mumbles through chipmunk cheeks. “A whole pack of cigarettes for these was a bit much. In a few days you could have traded the smokes for anything.”
“I did get him to throw in breakfast,” I point out, pulling the powdered doughnuts from under the hoodie. “It was a two for one deal.”
“Ah, I see,” she mumbles, finally swallowing her first doughnut. “In that case, I approve.”
Thunder cracks deeply, drawing us both back to reality. Hard rain suddenly pounds on the walkway outside sending tiny drops splashing into the room. It’s Florida and when it rains, it pours. Slipping off the bed, I walk over to the door and start to close it. Across the street a woman in a pencil skirt and a cropped jacket holds a pair of high heels and argues with a scruffy looking man. There is a bon fire under a line of tree’s and she is trying to stay out of the rain, but he keeps pushing her out of his dry spot and frowning at her. She must have walked in off the highway.
I try to imagine her circumstance. A business woman is driving alone when her car stops. She waits a day, but when no one comes to help she walks ten miles to town. There’s little water and even less food available. Worst of all, any money she has on her person is nearly worthless. Upon arrival she’s just one of numerous homeless newcomers. So what happens to her?
I close the door to a crack and watch. After more debate the woman lets the man put his arm around her. This request granted he moves her in out of the rain with the rest of the rabble. I fear the trade balance has just been revealed to me and my stomach rolls. I close the door and flip the deadbolt. Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to.
DAY THREE
The wind hits the glass sliding doors with such force they rattle. The sky is grey, making it feel like dusk rather than the mid-morning. The coffee shop wasn’t open this morning, but we can’t be sure if it’s the weather or that they ran out of things to sell. The street out front is empty leaving only bent over palm trees and blowing litter visible. I wonder where the stranded people went. Last night there were two dozen people under the trees across the street. Over the past few days I have seen as many as a dozen refugees sleeping on the beach in the morning when I get up, but today it’s a ghost town. Izzy worries that people will have broken into random cars to get out of the weather, but neither of us want to venture out to check ours.
We agree there had been something on the news about a tropical storm heading for the Florida Key’s a week ago, but can’t say for sure. This is clearly more than just a thunderstorm. Our plan to leave that evening looks unlikely. She is sure that we won’t be able to safely navigate a highway littered with abandoned vehicles at night in the pouring rain. There is also the issue of standing water. If we had to drive on the shoulder or median we might get stuck. A heated debate rages on until mid-day, when the subject of lunch overwhelms the idea of being stranded.
Having shared the doughnuts at day break, we are left with little to eat. When the topic arises she looks amused. Why is she so content looking?
“Are you sure you were in the Army?”
“Yes, why?” I answer defensively.
“Two backpacks sitting in your motel room and you never thought to look inside?”
“Well they’re yours?” I argue.
“Rubbish.”
“So what’s in the second one,” I demand, having seen some of the contents of the first.
“You tell me.”
Annoyed, but now curious, I lug the second over to the bed. I unzip the top, releasing an avalanche of Slim Jims. Izzy grins, but I just shake my head at her. She let me go on thinking we had nothing. Reaching in past the horde of beef jerky I come back with a half dozen boxes of crackers. There are Ritz and Cheese-it and some sort of chicken brisket crackers I have never seen before. The bottom half of the backpack is all water bottles, which is why it was so heavy. One side pocket contains handfuls of random power bars, while another reveals wet wipes. These are the kind you would use on a baby. One pack is lemon, while the second is a more standard scentless sort. Lastly is something called Boogey Wipes, which feature a baby blowing his nose on the top.
“T-Buck have all this stashed in the car?” I ask, pushing the pile over and sitting down.
“Sadly no, I stopped at a 7-11 for gas and bought as much as I could.”
“No chocolate doughnuts?”
“Anything I bought has to be fine in a locked car,” she explains. “It’s been pretty hot out. Chocolate or cheese would have been a mess. Any sort of carbonated beverage ruined.”
“Like beer?”
To this she nods. We enjoy a lunch of Slim Jims and crackers. The chicken brisket ones are to die for and she has to take them away from me when it appears I will devour them all. I count 24 water bottles; of which we drink two with lunch. How long does this have to last?
“How far was it from home to here? How long did it take you to get here?”
“I didn’t come straight here. I went to Tallahassee first,” she stipulates. “Had you been in Tallahassee we would be at Missy’s house by now.”
“Right,” I shrug, trying to re-think my question.
“From here I’d say thirteen hours pre end-of-the-world drive time.”
“Pre-end-of-the-world?”
“Yeah, a bunch of cars driving seventy or better on a clean road,” she explains. “Driving now will be an obstacle course.”
“How long then? Twice the time?”
“Driving round the clock, as we can’t stop to sleep,” she points out. “Two days, but that’s a wild guess. Could be more, a lot more.”
“We could sleep in shifts.”
“Nope,” she shakes her head adamantly. “You driving and me spotting.”
“Riding shotgun, so to speak?”
“Loaded and ready to dance.”
This idea will take some getting used to, but my train of thought was really about the water. If I randomly say we each need 3 bottles a day, which is low in this heat, then we have at most three days’ worth. The storm rages outside, leaving me thinking of how long we
will be trapped here before we can leave. If it lets up by tomorrow night and we leave and drive straight through we will still be short. Does she have a plan for this?
“This all the water we got?”
“Bottled?” she mutters, then sees where I am going. “But the tubs full. Save the bottles and we can fill them before we go. Add water to you list of valuable commodities.”
“People will wrongly assume there’s plenty,” I shrug. “So it’s cigarettes, bullets and water.”
“I’d say water, bullets, cigarettes, but I don’t smoke.”
“Right, water first.”
“The list grows,” she recites ominously, then makes a cackling witch laugh.
That afternoon, Izzy stands in front of the door and shampoos her hair in the rain. It’s a funny visual, but it’s actually pretty smart. Soapy water runs down the walkway as it pours off her. I lean out the door and notice dozens eyes on her from the direction of the coffee shop. The glass in front is full of ogling faces. Apparently someone let them in and it’s crammed with people staying dry. Or they might have just broken in. In either case a pretty girl in a bathing suit washing her hair in the rain is big entertainment today. The bikini is blue and white striped and a size to small. She must have bought it off someone, as I doubt it was originally hers. In either case she looks like she’s starring in a Girls Gone Wild video.
When she’s done she towels off while I take a turn. There is far less interest in my shower, but a few ladies peek out giving me an ego boost. After, while I am drying off, I see a woman running into the rain to gather up several buckets, then retreating to a room down the way. When she goes to return the buckets I realize it’s the woman wearing the business suit and pencil skirt from the previous night. She’s barefoot now and missing the jacket. Her white blouse is soaked, revealing a dark colored bra. When she runs a tear up one side of her skirt is visible. I watch as she replaces the buckets and runs back to the room on the end of the building. Her dark nylons are shredded at her feet and torn several other places.
When she reaches the room she catches herself on the wall outside with both hands. She shakes her head, tossing water off her like a wet cat. Her face turns in my direction, her eyes locking on me instantly. I force a smile and wave, using just my wrist, not my whole arm. It’s a conservative wave and she nods in return. A moment passes as we stare at one and other, then she mouths something. I’m trying to discern what it was, but a man I have not seen before pops out the door and barks something at her. Her head is still turned in my direction and she mouths a message at me again. Seeing this exchange, the man grabs her roughly by the hair and drags her back inside like a caveman.
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