by Mary Carmen
The insurance companies have exhausted their assets, according to the media. If the government bails out the insurers, the government will default on all its obligations.
April 26, 2134 – I talked to my mortgage company today. They are recommending their borrowers continue to pay their minimum amounts due until the situation becomes clearer. The problem is that most of their borrowers are at the bottom of the Sacramento Bay.
The media are now able to deliver detailed maps of what is remaining. All of Folsom is gone, and lands east of Folsom are very unstable. Placerville is on notice for a four-hour evacuation.
The president’s secretary paid my hotel bill with her company credit card since mine is exhausted. The hotel is happy to have me since nobody else is traveling.
April 30, 2134 – Nothing to do but watch the media and read. My eyes are so red from crying I feel ashamed to go out. If I stop at a café in town, I will start to cry again. Room service is open only until early evening.
The president’s secretary sent a minister from her church to see me. I’m sure he meant well, but nobody can give me a word of comfort. What kind of a god allows terrible things like this to happen?
May 2, 2134 – It has been almost two weeks, and I’m still here, alone, in a strange town.
The hotel people have been very kind, especially after the president’s secretary paid my bill. This is the slow season, and they are elated to have somebody in one of their best rooms.
The minister returned, with a Catholic priest. Of course, my church is essentially out of business, but there are still a few of the faithful to receive the sacraments. The priest came from Princeton University in Bradford to see me. He spoke very little, but he assured me God has a plan for me. He also said he was certain my children are with Our Blessed Mother.
I wish I could have the firm faith I had when I was young. In those days, I accepted whatever happened with a philosophical attitude. Now, I have so much invested in my plans and my dreams that I cannot just turn my life around. I cannot see doors opening. I see only the ones that have closed.
The priest left a pamphlet about the New Christian Congregation’s work on Clarkl. I promised I would look it over. Lord knows I have the time.
May 5, 2134 – At last the company has allowed me to continue westward, if only in a car.
We have an entirely new list of products, and I have been trying to use some of them in the recipes in the sales brochure.
The wild rice flour is gone. The silos that held the next year’s mill supply are under water. I hate losing my best seller.
Of course, most of the wild rice flour is a combination of wheat and buckwheat. The amount of ground wild rice is small, never more than twenty-five percent. But nobody will pay premium dollars for wheat mixed with buckwheat without the wild rice.
I always demonstrated it with some cooked wild rice thrown into the batter. Not too soft, of course. Just chewy. Served with some A grade maple syrup, those cakes always produced an order book full of sales.
The company has already filled the orders I submitted for restaurants in Warren, Kane, and Coudersport. I drove by the customer in Kane yesterday and saw those cakes on the menu board. I hate to have to tell people we can’t supply the flour for next year.
Tomorrow I will drive to Meadville to see what the college needs.
Where would I be now if Jimmy hadn’t resigned, leaving this territory? Running around in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana was the furthest thing from my mind in January, but some of our best customers are here. The president insisted I take the territory because of its contribution to the bottom line, but it meant leaving the family for two or three weeks every quarter.
I would be swimming in Sacramento Bay with my darlings, that’s where I would be.
May 6, 2134 – The president’s secretary called me to tell me to complete the dependents’ life insurance forms. She wants everything filed by May 20, even though the insurance carrier has given us a year.
The college and two large hotels in Meadville are good customers, and they placed the usual orders. I cooked some of the buckwheat and blueberry cakes and added that flour to their orders.
My energy is low, and I told the company I would take my time through Ohio. I’ll stay here in Meadville for a few more days. Nothing to rush home for.
The office in Placerville has been torn down, so I have neither a home nor a desk. The building had been standing since the 1850s. Of course, it had never lived through an 8.8 earthquake during the nearly three centuries of its existence.
May 28, 2134 – I finally had the energy to look over that pamphlet from the New Christian Congregation. Maybe I should try working on Clarkl for a year or two. A great adventure, with bizarre natives and a freeze-your-ass-off climate.
The pamphlet says they need both chefs and storeroom clerks. I could qualify as either, really. After my graduation from the California Culinary Academy in Sacramento in 2126, I spent three years at the Hyatt in Reno as a sous chef. Then, when Lucille asked me to keep shorter work hours, I took this job, starting at the plant in Davis as an inventory manager.
It was tight for a year, until I was able to get into sales and use my culinary training to actually show people what could be done with the products. After that came the house in Folsom and the two little ones.
All gone now.
June 17, 2134 – Working the Akron area this week. The good people here are already our most enthusiastic customers. Lots of disappointment that the wild rice flour will be in short supply.
I am pushing the buckwheat and dried cherry flour now. The amount of time you need to let the buckwheat stand after mixing is just right to get those cherries plumped up a little. Those cakes are very nice with our applesauce syrup or with the chocolate topping. I usually demonstrate them with both, and I find the orders are quickly written.
Buckwheat is going to be in good supply, with mid-western producers. We will use cherries from the Carolinas.
Can’t get people hooked on what we are short of. They’ll try to find things elsewhere and may change brands for other products, too.
July 8, 2134 – Spending the week around Springfield, Ohio. These people are very warm, anxious to talk about the big quake. I have a hard time keeping my composure, but it has been nearly a month since I cried in public.
There are problems with the insurance, it appears. I had signed up for all I could buy, and the company is wondering why.
Because I come from a long line of worriers, that’s why! Our family probably kept the term life insurance carriers in business. We bought lots of insurance and lived a long time. Until this April, my relatives have always lasted at least ninety years.
Is the company assuming I had something to do with this quake? I am outraged!
July 17, 2134 – There’s still no place for me in Placerville. The company is “rethinking its California business plan,” according to the message from the president.
Hell’s bells! There’s nothing to think about! The legislature of California is scurrying around, trying to come up with a scheme to save the state’s credit rating. We just need to develop other suppliers and other markets until the dust settles.
Meanwhile, I’m still writing orders in Ohio. These people are big on the high-protein wheat flour and pasta. They say a dinner with a roast is only a memory, and the main dish now is very likely to be something from our pasta-and-fake-cheese line. Buckeyes say our fake cheese, Gheddar, is much better than the General Mills fake cheese, Monterey Jill.
Developed cheese. That’s the euphemism. Keeping it on the tip of my tongue.
California is planning a big memorial service in September. I am thinking about that empty plot in the cemetery in Fresno. I would like to erect a nice stone with the names of my parents, my wife, and my children. I’ll put my own name next to Lucille’s and have the mason stand it next to my grandparents. Then, that plot will be waiting for me. I hope they will look down and smile.
Nothin
g has been recovered, of course. Probably all out to sea. The floor of the Sacramento Bay is washed to the Pacific Ocean twice a day. My house is now about a half mile from the shore, under at least twenty feet of water.
July 28, 2134 – The president has called a special all-hands meeting for tomorrow. There is bad news. He never sees anybody unless there is trouble.
I think he believes it is his responsibility to look people in the eye. You are fired. You are demoted. You were passed over. These are his only topics when he calls you. Pick one.
I’ll call in from my videophone. He will have about three hundred video calls and about a thousand people in the auditorium. And a large number of ghosts.
July 30, 2134 – The company is essentially in bankruptcy. The directors had assumed about half the life insurance liability, and the claims have now exceeded the last fifteen years of income.
The other half of the liability has been assigned to several large insurance carriers, but they have thrown in the towel, too.
“Each individual is being sent a proposal,” the president said. “Your proposal will be available in early September, but I want to tell you now that the claims far exceed anybody’s assets. Even the federal government cannot cover these claims.”
Meaning, I guess, that the feds are not planning to pay Californians for their high-priced real estate, now under the water.
My own situation is complicated by the fact that my parents and my in-laws were insured, too, and I am the only living beneficiary. Adding all this up was difficult, but my current estimate of the value of my inheritance is $4,750,000. Lucille was insured for $3,000,000, making up the greatest part of my tally. The kids were covered for $500,000 each. My two parents and my two in-laws added on much smaller numbers to my total.
I’ll never see any of it.
August 3, 2134 – On to Cincinnati. The people of Springfield and their neighbors were certainly generous, and I wrote more orders per day than I have ever written before. I’m not sure how much of this is a feeling of sympathy over the loss of the California plant and how much is my own energetic sales techniques.
The president doesn’t want me to hurry back. His secretary continues to pay my travel expenses expeditiously, so I am very comfortable. The orders flow to the warehouse every evening, and they appear on the president’s sales reports the next morning.
I have returned to my pre-earthquake habits. Did you hear the one about the traveling salesman and the farmer’s daughter? I can stay celibate just so long.
Actually, the kitchens of the hotels and restaurants are excellent places to meet dates. Some women want a good man for a stable relationship, and others want somebody who will flatter them for a few hours. Luckily for me, the latter kind seem to be attracted to the hospitality professions. A nice dinner and a bouquet of roses from the florist the next day.
One rule for the married philanderer is to never date the same woman twice. I have never broken that rule, not even now that I am a widower.
August 16, 2134 – I dipped down yesterday into Kentucky to call on customers in Lexington. The woman who has the territory wanted me to try to open the doors at three select hotels. I wrote some orders but not enough to pay me to leave my own customers. Back to Ohio tomorrow.
A call today from Warren, Pennsylvania, for more stock. If I hadn’t holed up there, I never would have been able to sell to that customer. At last, a small silver lining to my terrible cloud.
August 27, 2134 – Just over the Indiana border now, headed toward Indianapolis.
September 3, 2134 – I received my statement from the president. The company and its insurers will pay me $103,550.
It is time to look elsewhere for employment.
September 7, 2134 – Still in Indiana, writing orders. The sympathy of these people exceeds that of the Buckeyes.
These customers have caused diners to become addicted to the wild rice flour, in pancakes, muffins, and rolls. They are ordering enormous quantities now, to store until the wild rice fields are producing again. The price cannot hold for much longer.
September 10, 2134 – A call today to the priest in Warren to find out more about the Clarkl business. I sent him my résumé, and he will send it along to the people who run the project.
I would be a government employee. This is the same government that cannot bail out California. Can I expect that government to pay my salary?
September 14, 2134 – The New Christian Congregation has sent me an offer. A yearly salary of $60,000, tax free, with room and board provided. I need to stay for at least ten years.
This offer is good for ninety days. That will give me enough time to get the gravestone in place in Fresno and negotiate with my current employer. My spacecraft leaves on February 15, 2135.
I feel like a motherless child. I have no ties to anybody now. My heart is in heaven, but I have to serve my time here or in Clarkl.
February 20, 2135 – A tiny, tiny single cabin on this enormous craft, one deck from the bottom. The shower is very small, too, and I have to step out to turn around.
Plenty of water, though. The craft makes water all the time.
I was amazed the president made a counter offer, but one that did not include any increase in my insurance settlement. “Can’t change the payout,” he said. “Too many others would be knocking on my door.”
It would not surprise me if half his sales staff left over the next year. A company that does not live up to its commitments to its employees soon finds the good people looking for other opportunities. The poor performers, of course, just dig in and spend their time complaining at the water cooler.
There was nobody to say goodbye at the spaceport, though. All the family has gone home to Jesus, and I need to find a new life for myself.
I am assigned to the first-class galley. I have responsibility for breakfast, although anything on the menu can be ordered on my shift. I have been using our wild rice flour in muffins, and people are asking for the recipe.
The pantry contains a complete selection of our products. I feel very comfortable.
March 3, 2135 – I am becoming more excited about my adventure. The people on this craft are either seasoned universal travelers with lots of money or middle-class Christians who are expecting a life-changing experience. Everyone I talk to is just crazy to get to Clarkl.
The captain takes all meals in our dining room. He has a very fixed daily schedule, and I am getting used to it. During my shift, he has a light tea and, a few hours later, a glass of wine with some mixed hors d’oeuvres. He usually has some elderly couple at his table, regaling them with his travel stories. One of the desks in the lounge has a monitor with his complete slide show, and everybody in first class has seen it.
These people are very nice, I think. The dress code here is not what you would see on a premier sailing vessel, so there is no fashion show at dinner. Instead, people are dressing comfortably throughout the day.
April 7, 2135 – Still enjoying the voyage. I am working every day, with no day off, but I had expected that. The headwaiter is very helpful with suggesting things I already have prepared, and getting through the shift is now easy. The scullery help is thorough, and it is good to have everything in place at all times.
We have plenty of lettuce growing in the kitchen garden, something I was surprised to see. One robot chops vegetables and another cleans lettuce. These creatures work nearly full time. When I need carrots or celery of a certain size, it takes the robot about ten seconds before my request is fulfilled. I just say, “Half cup carrot julienne,” and it is quickly on my worktable.
Not much action in the bedroom, though. The good Christians need to be courted for weeks, and the first-class passengers are off limits. One woman, married to an old duffer, indicated she was interested, but I had to refuse. No use getting into trouble when there are so many weeks left to go.
May 5, 2135 – Only a month until we land in Clarkl. Still hoping for some romance, but nothing looks promising.
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br /> I wish I had been a better husband. That’s my only regret about my life prior to the great quake. I was unfaithful and really not very generous. If I had known the time was so short, maybe I would stayed closer to home. I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of bouquets of roses I took home. I can’t count on the fingers of one hundred hands the number of bouquets of roses I sent to various one-night stands.
All those faces have disappeared, now. Each woman has become much like the others, with the flashy smiles and the short skirts and the heavy perfume.
I never allowed myself to take an interest in the shy, elegant ones. There was too much to lose.
I told myself I had never been unfaithful to Lucille. What I really meant was that I never found any woman who had caused me to regret my marriage vows. That was my definition of fidelity.
June 7, 2135 – We landed two days ago in the capital, Gilsumo, a collection of small houses with the monarch’s compound on the hill. I am amazed this place is so primitive. I had expected a certain level of sophistication from a species that builds spacecrafts.
Instead, each house is essentially a few square feet surrounded by thirty-inch walls. Each entity is assigned to one of these houses according to its status.
Our frequent guests are the Drones, and they appear to be at the bottom of the totem pole. I understand they are sterile, so they don’t reproduce generation after generation of hangers on. They do no work. They just gather together for their own amusement and come to our dining rooms.
There was no time to acclimate myself to this atmosphere. The place was without a chef since one died and the other left on the same spacecraft that brought me.
Already I am in charge in the kitchen. The manager sticks to the stockroom and the dining room, and everybody in the kitchen looks eagerly toward me for instructions.
These kitchen workers are all good churchwomen, of a certain age. I see them, in my mind’s eye, bringing covered dishes of macaroni and cheese to church suppers and pressing the inevitable leftovers onto their friends. I do not see them as suitable kitchen staff for a high-volume, five-star restaurant. They have one speed, and asking them to move their tails a little faster is not an option.