“And when we get there, what happens?”
He probably knows that better than I do. My mood sours. For all my imagining, I know there must be a final Challenge waiting, something more intense than covering distance. Something the audience, the cameras, will find irresistible. At the thought I take out my lens and scan the ceiling. The cameras are easy to find, but I can’t tell if they’re normal security cameras or if the show has put up more sophisticated ones. Of the two I can see, one is pointed at us and the other toward the inactive cash registers. Because something is going to happen over there or for atmosphere? I’ll ready myself for the former. This is the perfect place for a Challenge, after all, because it feels secure.
Brennan and I comb the aisles. At first I don’t even consider searching the produce section, because it’s all gone to mulch, but then a display of potatoes catches my eye. Root vegetables—they last for ages. With a kind of shy hopefulness, I approach the potatoes. Getting close, it’s hard to tell. I almost draw my lens from my pocket, but then reach out a hand instead, preparing myself for rot.
There’s no way they’ll allow me this.
My fingers meet firm brown skin. The sensation is so unexpected I don’t trust it. I squeeze, lightly, then harder, and still the potato doesn’t give.
It’s not rotten.
I must have done something right, something incredible, to earn such a prize. The banner, I think. This is my reward for climbing the downed tree, for bypassing the motel. For being both brave and prudent.
I jog to the front of the store and grab a handbasket. I hear Brennan call after me, but I don’t answer. Within moments I’m picking through the potatoes, finding the “best” by some standard I can’t name. Really, I just want to touch them all. Then I move to the adjacent stand. Onions. Garlic. Ginger. For all the fabricated decay around me, all I smell is spice. Flavor. The next half hour is a manic blur as I scour the aisles and collect ingredients: lentils, quinoa, cans of sliced carrots and green beans, peas. Olive oil. Diced, stewed tomatoes. I attack the spice aisle—ground black pepper, thyme, rosemary, cumin, turmeric, dried parsley, red pepper flakes. The flavors don’t go together, I know that, and yet I want them all.
There are plastic-wrapped packages of firewood at the front of the store, five logs per pack. I clear a space on the floor near where we ate our cereal, then start a fire inside a dinky charcoal grill. “Isn’t that going to set off the sprinklers?” asks Brennan.
“There’s no power,” I tell him. I have no idea if sprinkler systems need electricity to work, but they’ve disabled everything else in this forsaken world. I’ll keep the fire small, just in case. I arrange the grill’s metal grate atop the flames, then set a pot of lentils to boil.
Next, I place a potato on a cutting board. I pause and lift my knife. I breathe out and slice through the spotty skin. The two halves fall aside, revealing a sheen of moisture on the interior flesh. I sit on a plastic chair, staring at the halved potato on its plastic cutting board beneath this plastic umbrella and feel a stirring like joy. Which is ludicrous; it’s just a potato. But there’s something about its organic realness amid all the plastic and preservatives that strikes me as extraordinarily beautiful.
It’s nice to feel this way—even over a potato—but it also makes me nervous. I’m like a turtle pushing her head into the light while predators still peck at her shell. It’s a stupid move, I’m putting myself in danger, and yet—I need to feel this. I need to know that I’m still capable of joy. I brush the halved potato with my hand, and I give in.
First I grin, then I whistle. It’s a nothing tune, full of halting trills and looping, lifting patterns. Not a song, an outpouring. I’m not musical; it’s the best I can do. I dice the potato, and another, and am about to toss them into the boiling water with the lentils when I think—No, home fries. I hurry back to the cooking-gear aisle and grab a frying pan. I dice an onion, mince four large garlic cloves, green sprouts and all. Digging my hand into an oven mitt, I hold the pan over the grill, heating a swirl of olive oil. Once it’s hot, I dump the potatoes, the onion, the garlic all inside the pan at once. The sizzle, the smell; I laugh. I sprinkle a hearty covering of black pepper and a few red pepper flakes, toss it all with a flick of my wrist, then cover the pan and leave the home fries to cook. I chop more onions and garlic, peel some ginger just to smell it, then into the lentil pot it all goes, followed by the canned carrots, beans, and peas once I drain them. The tomatoes I dump in juice and all. At least a tablespoon of dried thyme, more pepper, both red and black, then at first just a dash of rosemary, then another. And—why not?—a single broad bay leaf. I uncover the home fries, give them a stir with a plastic spatula.
Suddenly Brennan is at my side and I’m happy to see him. “That smells great,” he says.
“Why don’t you see if you can find some canned chicken to toss in?”
“On it!” He hurries off.
It’s dark in the store now. My cooking area is well lit from the fire, but only a hint of moon and starlight enters from the vents above. I have no concept of how much time has passed since we entered. It simultaneously feels like only a few minutes and many hours.
Brennan returns and dumps half a dozen cans of cooked chicken breast on the table. I peel off the tops of two and scoop the contents into the lentil stew, which is thick now, bubbling and topped with white foam. I give the lentils another few minutes to cook, then pour in half a bag of quinoa. “It’ll be ready in fifteen or twenty minutes,” I say.
“What about those?” Brennan asks, nodding toward the home fries. I give them a stir and poke one with a plastic fork.
“Almost done.” I leave the cover off so they can brown.
“I was thinking,” he says. “What if we collect all the kitchen towels and stuff, use them to pad the chairs for sleeping?”
An hour or two ago I probably would have dismissed the idea as unnecessary, but now it tickles me. I agree, and Brennan begins hefting armfuls of tiny towels over from their aisle. He tears off the packaging and dumps them onto a pair of beach lounge chairs.
“There might be beach towels somewhere,” I say. “We can look after we eat.”
He nods, then sits across from me. I scoop a hefty portion of potatoes onto a paper plate and hand it to him. Remarkably, he waits until I’ve served myself before eating. Then he’s like a vacuum, steadily inhaling. I hesitate, though, relishing the smell.
“How are they?” I ask.
His answer is mangled by his refusal to stop shoveling food into his mouth, but I think he says, “Awesome.”