Chapter 82
“So …”
“So what?” I asked Zeb.
“C’mon. Are you really going to do it?”
I sighed. “I said I was already. Stop pushing.”
“It’s for Col. Morgan’s wife.”
“Zeb …”
“Ava …”
I nearly threatened to slug him but didn’t ‘cause you know … the last incident where that happened. Instead I told him, “Get off my back Zeb. I already told you … and the others who keep asking … that yes, I am going to sing. My question is how did the Colonel’s wife find out that I can sing and that I know Unchained Melody? I mean it makes me sound like a complete sucker that I would do it for their anniversary since they can’t be together this year.”
“Er … I’d love to shoot the breeze but I gotta go. Just making sure and …” I didn’t hear the tail end of Zeb’s sentence because he’d cut and moved off so fast. Like I didn’t know who told. What does he take me for? Dweeb. What Zeb didn’t know is that his “plan” to talk me into doing the Colonel’s wife a favor fit with my plan to go to the Fall Festival without a date … and dressed like a real girl. And when I say like a real girl, I mean I wanted to test the boundaries a bit. But I’m not stupid. I wanted an out and distance just in case my plan fell flat on its face or that Em didn’t notice, or not notice the way I wanted him to. A girl needs to save face. She also needs some cohorts in crime on occasion. This is where Denise and Vadie came in.
“No.”
“Ava …”
“Denise you said you would help me find a dress, not a few bandaids with strings attached to them.”
“I thought you said you wanted to dress like a real girl.”
“I do. I just don’t think dressing like a two-dollar hooker selling their wares on Main Street is the same thing.”
“Hey! This was my sister’s prom dress.”
All I did was look at her. And finally she busted out laughing. “Gawd, I almost had you there for a second. Admit it.”
“What you had was me thinking you were certifiable.” She just kept snorting and laughing until I’d finally had my fill. “If you couldn’t find the place just say so.”
“Oh alright,” she finally hiccuped. “I swear the lady at the shop thought I was certifiable. You could have gone with me to pick the dress up you know.”
“No. I couldn’t have. It was in Lafayette and people would ask awkward questions. I want it to be a complete surprise. You promise Mark isn’t going to say anything.”
“Are you kidding? He wants to be there when the fireworks start with a camera to prove it actually happened. He’s promised Melly to send her the pictures.” Melly is Mark’s wife whom I’ve never met but know from three-way phone conversations when Mark asked me to help send some raw sugar to his wife as a birthday present. “Now try it on. I wanna see,” Denise demanded. “This might just be weird enough for you to pull off.”
When I was finished and then changed back into my regular clothes, thankful that the dress actually fit, I told Denise, “Close your mouth before something nasty flies in.”
“Shaddup! Oh my gosh! Everyone is going to flip! Right out of their teeny tiny minds! And when the heck did you grow boobs?!”
“Will you knock it off?!” I whispered angrily while putting the dress away so that it wouldn’t get dirty in the work shed. “Someone is going to hear you cackling like a demented duck and wonder what is up.”
“Ducks don’t cackle, they quack. And even if they did, you showing up in that is worth a cackle or two. Seriously. You sure you have the hair and makeup covered?”
“Yeah. Vadie is going to give me a hand. Not that I plan on painting it on too much.”
“But you’ll wear some. And do your hair.”
“No. I’m gonna go with the grunge look.”
It took a few more assurances but she finally turned me loose … plus she had to meet her brother. I knew I was asking for trouble but I think I was due. Something was telling me … now, now!, NOW! … or lose the chance, maybe forever. I wasn’t sure what was poking at me but with so much going on it was like life was conspiring against me. And as troublesome of a freak as Daniel Edgar was becoming in my life, he wasn’t my biggest worry.
The war was starting to get realer than real all over again. Evacuation worries were not even hiding in people’s subconscious anymore. People would either stop me and ask how it had really gone in Florida, or they would pretend they didn’t see me because they didn’t want to know how it had really gone in Florida. Em kept talking about “our” plans but I knew when the boots hit the road he would feel a lot of responsibility for his family. I’m not sure if it would mean Auntie and the rest of them or his mother and brother or possibly both. Xavier had called a few times. Em never discussed it with me but I could see how stressed out he was afterwards.
While I went back to gardening I thought about everything going on and what I was feeling. As I planted daffodil bulbs I wondered if I would be around to see them bloom in the Spring. When I planted the cool-weather annuals like foxglove, petunias, and Shasta daisies, I wondered if I would be around even for the weather to cool off enough that the plants would make it. I started moving the tropical and subtropical container plants into the greenhouse and I wondered if it would be me moving them back out in the Spring or if it would be someone else. Not just because of the war but because all the crap with Danny Boy was going to pop and I suspected sooner rather than later.
I prepped the beds the wildflower seeds I planned to sow there and then wondered if I was wasting my time. I put a new layer of mulch down hoping that whether I was here or not it would save all the hard work I’d been doing for months. October wasn’t much different than September as far as what was being harvested in the gardens and orchards, there just wasn’t quite as much of it. I took most of what I harvested and left it on the back porch of the Big House. But not everything. I take my “pay” off the top these days instead of waiting around for the scraps.
Back in my room I set about doing what Em had asked me to do … make up more of the camp meals. That was my part in this grand plan he seemed to be building in his head. It’s not that I don’t believe him, believe in him, I just wonder if fate is going to let me try for the gold ring or not. Seen too much suckage to not know that there is a whole lot stacked up against that happening and our age difference is just a little thing compared to some of the other stuff. I’ll admit the whole dress at the Fall Festival is part of my fight against what stands in our way. Might sound stupid but I wanna … need to … have some memories if part of what I want fails the test of life.
But back to my part in The Plan. I told him that plenty of things can be canned (in a jar) like chili, soups, stews, and all that stuff but he wants to be super lightweight and the jars are gonna break if not packed properly. I’ve got a few packed in cardboard crates with dividers but they’re in the storage unit and we’ll need his truck to haul most of what he’s wanting to take. I’m planning for worst case scenario and being either on foot or on pedal power. He don’t know it but I’ve got a plan that if his back and leg go out I’ll put him in the bike trailer for as long as it makes sense. I might have to knock him out to make it happen but if we start on the road together, I’m not leaving it on the side of the highway if something happens.
I keep trying to remind him it won’t be just us … there will be his family in some shape or form even if it is just us throwing in with Mr. Hubert and Thib. He gets upset and refuses to talk about it. I won’t be the cause of a break with his family. He keeps telling me that I’m not the problem. I’m not sure what to think. I know I’m not the center of the universe but I drag a lot of baggage whether I want to or not. To sop my conscience I’ve decided to try and plan both ways … for a group of ten and for a smaller group. I keep pushing Vadie to tell them at the Big House they need to be planning too. She says she’s tried but they think it is over blown. I’ve spoken to Mr. Julius and he’s listening but helpless to move the older ladies along. I’ve spoken to Mr. Hubert and he says he’ll do what he can but I’m not sure to put much faith in his ability to move the older ladies along willingly. Of course knowing that man he will just pack them up unwilling but that’ll mean leaving things behind they’ll regret. I can’t fix everything so I try and stick to the things I can do something about.
When Em first saw the meals I was putting together he said, “That crew of yours musta eat good. This looks better than what we had in the field.”
I snorted. “Hormones and Hangries don’t go well together. We all got a long a lot better if we ate decent. Plus it had been a troop competition and sorta kinda tradition since before my brother was old enough to be a scout.” I shrugged. “Every troop and crew have their thing I guess. Ours was high adventure and good chow.”
And good chow was a good way to describe it. Cheesy Chicken and Broccoli Rice was a regular favorite. So were Beef Stroganoff and Trail Taco Mac. They were pretty cheap to make so we could make plenty. The Patel brothers usually made their own things like Curry Lentils as they were strict vegetarians. I tell you what though, some of their stuff didn’t just burn the hair off your tongue, it melted them right the flaming off. I could occasionally eat something hotter than those two could, but not often. It was usually a draw.
I learned to extend all of our meals for the unexpected. We put dumplings in nearly everything at one time or another so we kept the mix on hand just in case. It was a cheap way to stretch a menu when there wasn’t enough to go around when it was first made or when a patrol had to share their food because something happened to another patrol’s plans. It was also a good way to have “bread” without actually have loaf bread. ‘Course there were things like camp biscuits and things I could cook in a pie iron or the end of a stick. Basically regular food just cooked a different way or in a different shape.
One of the fancier things we would sometimes bring along was Pasta Primavera. We’d wait until the Patel brothers got their share out and then we’d toss in rehydrated chicken to kick it up another notch. Breakfast was usually things like fancied up oatmeal or grits; but, if we had a stationary camp not too far off the beaten path we’d bring fresh eggs along and make omelets though I don’t expect to see a lot of that in an evacuation situation. I’m bringing some powdered eggs but one or two cooking disasters with those things makes me thing that scrambled eggs won’t be happening.
Like I said there was a lot of experimenting, some of it tasting good and some of it not. Pumpkin Quinoa Chili was liked by some and others threatened to gag if asked to eat it again. The Barley Walnut Risotto looked enough like dogfood that it was a testament to how hungry we were that we would take more than a bite. I closed my eyes on that one myself … it really did look like we’d popped the top on some Alpo. Moroccan Chickpeas was something the Patel Brothers tried but only a few of us could stand the heat. We must have tried every Ramen Recipe and Spam Recipe ever thought up and most of them were good but that would be another thing I wouldn’t be able to make this time around … no ramen and no spam to be found in the entire country if you believed what you heard on the news.
I was drying some cooked shrimp – and yes it smelled just as bad as you can imagine – when Em walked in for the night.
“Good Lord … what is that smell?!”
The look on his face was both disgusted and hopeful and it made me laugh for the first time in a while. “I’m dehydrating some shrimp so I can figure out a way to make Jambalaya on the road.”
“Woman after my own heart but can we put the fan on and blow that smell outside?”
I laughed again and conceded since I had been thinking the same thing.
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